


Silhouettes in Sunsets

by Pie (potteresque_ire)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: hd_career_fair, Community: hd_fan_fair, Fluff and Angst, Gay Owls, Luthier Draco Malfoy, M/M, Owl Emporium Owner Harry Potter, tom felton - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-27
Updated: 2009-10-27
Packaged: 2018-12-23 01:17:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 22,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11979063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potteresque_ire/pseuds/Pie
Summary: Draco Malfoy was a Gringotts accountant by day and a luthier by night, making musical instruments that sang the language of the player’s heart, language audible only to the ears of his soul mate. Harry Potter was a struggling quill pal to the children of war and the owner of Hedwig’s Owl Emporium on Diagon—haven for future pets, owls retired from services and orphaned chicks. Music and scheming owls would soon bring the two wizards together.





	1. Time Isn't Healing

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 2009 hd_career_fair, based on [Tom Felton's vision of Draco's future career](https://mavieenlair18.wordpress.com/2009/07/16/exclusive-interview-tom-felton-%E2%80%93-behind-the-mask-of-malfoy-part-3/): _"I [Draco]’d probably be a magical luthier and make some sort of musical instrument to sell on Diagon Alley."_ Chapter titles are song titles from Tom Felton, including songs from his EP _In Good Hands_. Many thanks to Melusinahp for the beta and marguerite_26 for help on the draft.

_Time heals all wounds_.  
  
Perhaps it will. Harry appreciates these words of kindness, the gentle touches and brilliant smiles of his friends; he even finds solace in the editorials of the  _Prophet_ , where progress on the many social reforms is depicted with self-congratulatory pride across the pages.  
  
It’s just that in his dreams healing is synonymous with peace. This world remains too loud—wine glasses clinking at lavish Ministry parties, coins raining from the hands of those who rose from rags to riches after the war.  
  
The noise reminds him too much of his scar; it no longer bleeds, but is red and screaming, rousing memories just when they are finally dozing off and are about to drift away; it inundates, smearing the delicate outline of life’s quiet moments, drowning out the voices of the meek and the weak.  
  
The wound is closed, but has never healed.  
  
Maybe this is why he has fallen in love with sunsets. Not something expected of a hero, who should relish the day, who should, if just to create a picture perfect moment for the next news headline, stride into the glorious morning after demolishing whatever evil he has fought. But he yearns for the silence the night promises, even if darkness must descend along with it.  
  
The hour of sunset, then, seems like a good compromise.  
  
His closest companions these days must agree. Just like himself, they are taking in the sweeping view beyond the owlery, from the wide, bustling Diagon below them all the way deep into the narrow, winding Knockturn Alley; the evening sun cloaks every pavement, every corner with its golden glow, unaware of—unheeding to—the differences between people dwelling along them.  
  
The sight must be so mesmerizing that the owls ignore Harry as he refills their feeding bowls with water. They have become increasingly distracted at this hour over the past few months, as if something from afar is steadily garnering their attention.  
  
Nocturnes, Harry imagines, that he will never be able to hear.


	2. Father of Mine

To understand Draco Malfoy, one must understand the man who was his father.  
  
At times, capturing a glimpse of the late Lucius Malfoy is a mindless task. For one, Draco has inherited most of the sharp features, the same blond hair that he ties with the same black silk bow. He showcases his father’s wardrobe to his colleagues at Gringotts everyday, never mind the expensive silk and fine tailoring are mockeries to his low paying job.  
  
Of course, Draco is never seen without the silver serpent cane—one that only he knows is a replica, devoid of the magic that had sculpted the original. The one carried by his forefathers is guarding his parents’ ashes, interred with the last sliver of fear and reverence for the Malfoy name.  
  
It’s only that … Draco has better things by which to remember his father, better memories that shed light into the soul of Lucius Malfoy.  
  
Drifting dust scatters the rays of the setting sun in his small flat into a haze. Draco strums his fingers along the strings; he stops in the silence, takes a moment to sense the flutter in his chest, and runs a hand to the headstock to adjust one of the pegs. He strikes a chord again.  
  
_The heart of the luthier will know when his instrument is fine tuned, when its music comes alive to him and the one who speaks the language of his heart._  
  
Those were the words of his father, which Draco found the day he was forced to hand the Malfoy estate over to the Ministry.  
  
Along with a few lutes and guitars, the journal sat in one of the unused house-elf quarters, which Lucius Malfoy had used for safekeeping during Voldemort’s tenure. That evening, leaning against the yet unpacked luggage in his new home, Draco read and re-read the entries, tracing the roots of his ancestors as makers of magical music instruments before turning master—or slave—to wealth and power. The heart-speak spoken by the Malfoy instruments, once a means to find and forge lifelong companionships for the player, became a weapon that exposed the soul mate of one’s enemies. The unsuspecting witches or wizards would then soon appear on the obituary page of  _The Prophet_.  
  
Whilst Draco as a small boy had assumed his parents were scheming their master’s return in the quiet hours of the night, Lucius Malfoy had actually been re-mastering the art of instrument making in the study, playing nocturnes that only his mother could hear.  
  
The deepest Malfoy secret was about love. Funny, isn’t it?  
  
Draco seats himself on the cracked stone windowsill, his guitar and the remaining warmth and light of the evening huddled in his lap. Beneath him, Knockturn Alley is waking to the imminent darkness; pedestrians hustle along with their faces down, make business deals with little more than the physical exchange of Galleons and goods. Save for the few scattered moans, loud and fake, from the street whores, the silence is almost complete.  
  
Which is just as well. The voice of this crowd has long been muted so the rest of the world can find its peace.  
  
Plucking a string with his fingers, Draco turns to look at his workspace where carved Manticore scapulas are melding into sound boxes with a modified  _Episkey_. He smiles. Lucius Malfoy left behind a most unexpected legacy for a Dark wizard.  
  
A gift of music. A chance everyone deserves, even—and especially—the son of a Death Eater.

 


	3. If You Could be Anywhere

Harry casts a locking spell on the front door of Hedwig’s Owl Emporium, fully aware that this may be the last time he does so.  
  
The owlery, where his owls feed and rest, is two stories above the shop front. Since purchasing the shop from Mr Eeylops, Harry has enchanted it to several times its original size, with the owlery being the most spacious of all rooms; magical trees grow towards the taller than visible ceiling, their hollow branches home for the birds. Hedwig’s is not only a haven for future pets and messengers, but also for the orphaned chicks found in deserted or confiscated manor houses, for the aged and the sick whose glory days are far behind them.  
  
He climbs the wooden stairs, the usual assortment of owl treats trailing him in the air; Apparation’s loud pop is too startling for the birds. He relishes the peace of this sanctuary, their home as well as his own.  
  
Sunset is still a half-hour away. He has closed the shop early to talk to his friends. Once the sky turns fervent with its fire, the owls will ignore him and their dinner; they will also crowd by the window, gazing longingly at the freedom just beyond their reach.  
  
A flutter of wings echo Harry’s footsteps on the stone; as soon as he stops at the center of the room, the owls form a circle around him, lightly hooting their welcome.  
  
“Hi.” Harry greets them softly in return. Scratching the scar on his forehead—a habit of which he can never rid himself—he decides to sit on the floor, the food lined up before him; baby owls hop onto his outstretched hand and trek onto his crossed legs.  
  
“I notice you’ve all wanted to go out in the evening,” he begins after the birds have helped themselves to the treats. “I don’t know if there’s a place you want to visit for a few hours, or if you’ve found another place you’d prefer to call home.”  
  
The owls stop pecking at their food; only after taking a deep breath is Harry able to continue. “So this is what I’m going to do. I’ll open the wards in a bit and you’re free to go anywhere.”  
  
Morsels of food rain on the floor.  
  
“I’ll have to close the wards tonight. If you want to get back in, just tap on my bedroom window. You all know where I sleep, right? On the other side of the stairwell.”  
  
The elderly owls’ bright, sharp vision focuses on Harry with the intensity of  _Legilimens_. Meanwhile, a few young ones fly towards the archway of the owlery and out of sight. To check out his bedroom, Harry presumes; his chest gives a tight squeeze.  
  
“Any time, any day … you’ll be welcomed.” He lifts the corner of his mouth in what he hopes resembles a smile, then returns to his feet and pats the dust off his jeans. “I’m going downstairs to work on, er, letters,” he mutters. “Parchmentwork.”  
  
The first golden glow has seeped into the owlery, trickling in among the shadows of the branches; the lines on the floor, each demarcating the boundary between light and darkness, are strikingly sharp despite being so intricately woven with one another.  
  
Harry almost sprints down the stairs. His life has been filled with good-byes, but he is never any good at saying them.  
  


~.~

  
Silence and peace are not the same thing.  
  
His friends—his family—are gone. For the past weeks, Harry has busied himself with tidying up his home and his shop one full season ahead of his spring cleaning schedule. Only the splashes of water and the whoosh of owlery supplies mask the stillness around him.  
  
The candle in his bedroom extinguishes with a  _Nox_ ; Harry lies down on his bed and stares out the window. On a clear night like this, the full moon looks as if it has finally found its place in the world; as if it will finally be there to stay, a gentle fire countering the darkness until the end of time.  
  
Of course, everyone knows that it will not last; it will return without fail, but not before it loses everything and starts over.  
  
The sky is a grayish white when Harry looks outside again, a foretaste of the first winter storm to come. A silhouette, almost camouflaged by its backdrop, is perching on the windowsill, its beak knocking a brisk  _tap tap tap, tap tap tap_  on the bedroom window.

 

 


	4. When Angels Come

Malfoy Manor had once hosted a gallery of angels. Some of the portraits reminded little Draco of his mother in her white silk gown—fair and immaculate, their wings soft and fluffy like the peacocks’. Others were rather scary, their robes torn and the swords they wielded sinister; their wings were black and leathery like bats’.  
  
Draco had once asked his mother why angels didn’t come in other colours; it was years later when he learned the artwork had all depicted Lucifer, the Fallen Angel.  
  
It was another decade or so later before other angels appeared before his eyes. Some were brown, most turned out to be a little shaggy, their fur coats spotted; their eyes were gold as the setting sun behind them.  
  
Draco didn’t find them. They found him.  
  
It was unnerving, the first time the flock of owls, thirty strong, had landed on the rooftop of the building across his flat; his heart pounded at their collective stares, all intense and discerning, stomping out the already faint flutters he had struggled to hear within himself. He retired early that evening, assuming the birds would depart with the twilight.  
  
They did, only to return later with their dinner.  
  
It took mere days for Draco to resume his evening practices, he and his heart quickly learning to ignore the uninvited guests; but less than a week later a dreadful day at work made him wonder whether angels could come in disguise.  
  
Even as owls.  
  


~.~

  
The cane wobbles, then crashes against the floor. Draco levitates it and throws it on his bed with one hand, while his other hand tears against the collar of his robes.  
  
Until not so long ago, the Malfoys had been Gringotts’ royalty, their crown bejeweled by the Galleons in their vaults and their scepter by their ties with the Ministry. True, they might have since been demoted to the plebian rank, but …  
  
… to become punching bags for the nouveaux riches? Draco is an adept accountant; that his client had demonstrated her abysmal intelligence on the Quidditch betting tables was not his responsibility. Why should he be the one to forfeit from her the World Cup Prime Seating ticket, reserved only for the bank’s richest patrons?  
  
_Because, Mr Malfoy,_  the Chief of Customer Relations replied with a smirk,  _you know what it’s like to return to the Common Stands after being in the Top Box._  
  
Draco also knew how to cast Unforgivables.  
  
His client’s insults he took in stride; Draco is an expert at turning a deaf ear. But her hexes were unexpected; worst of all, suspecting a surveillance two-way mirror in his cubicle, Draco had not dared to retaliate.  
  
He throws on a shirt and casts a  _Lumos_  at the torch holder, casting shadows upon the unfinished work piled high on his worktable. The rosewood violins and cellos on the left are for his Diagon customers. Like those sold by other luthiers, they are laden with intricate spells to befuddle hearts and minds. Draco's instruments, however, are also laced with a simple aphrodisiac charm in heart-speak. He does a good business, the extra dash of enchantment noted by his patrons, and the profit he makes from them offsets the cost of the plucked string instruments on the right—each one grotesque looking with bone and gems taking the place of wood, their music carrying nothing but the unique signature of a Malfoy luthier.  
  
Since his move into Knockturn Alley two years ago, Draco has given the plucked instruments to the residents there for free.  
  
This arrangement explains how he got himself into his current predicament; Draco Malfoy is, in the immeasurable wisdom of the late Severus Snape, a sentimental fool.  
  
He could have invested his earnings in rare potions ingredients. Instead of stringing soundboxes for nights at a time, he could have woven new business connections, ladders to rescale the social ranks; instead of excavating the bones of magical creatures in the forest, he could be digging up dirt on the rich and famous.  
  
He could have followed the cunning example of his ancestors, offering his handiwork to the powerful and then using what—or who—the music revealed to his advantage.  
  
Still, old habits die hard; Draco instead finds himself reaching for his guitar and cursing his weakness. Resigned, he takes his usual seat, dangling his feet outside so the evening breeze can soothe the scars on his skin.  
  
The owls are already on the rooftop, their silhouettes still conspicuous against the dimming sky. Ever since the Dark Lord had graced the manor with his presence, Draco had a particular sensitivity towards looming shadows, black outlines cutting into the darkness.  
  
His heart is not in the music when he strums the first chord; far from it. Half of him wishes his fingers would break the strings, once and for all.  
  
The birds, usually quiet and still when he played, flap their wings and hoot.  
  
_They’re bothered._  
  
Smirking, Draco strikes an even harsher chord, then another, and another. The noise drives the owls insane; soon, their protests are loud enough for the entire Knockturn Alley to hear.  
  
“Leave me alone!” The frustration simmering inside Draco explodes. A screaming match with the owls ensues for a good five minutes before the etiquette of a proper wizard returns to him.  
  
“ _Accio_  wand!”  
  
He throws the guitar on his lap as his wand whizzes into his grasp.  
  
“ _Petrifi—_ ”  
  
But the birds are faster. Several charge towards him and a barn owl pecks him on his wrist; Draco’s wand see-saws on the windowsill, then clatters to the floor of his flat.  
  
Meanwhile, the other owls have landed on his guitar—two snowy owls, an eagle owl and a small gray owl, their stare at Draco accusatory.  
  
A bad day has turned absurd. Draco hisses and inquires with the as much politeness as he can muster, “What?”  
  
The birds fold their wings in unison, like an act of surrender; their sudden peace is infectious. Shoulders sag with his long exhale, Draco is about to swing his legs back indoors when the owls on his guitar are on the move again, their small feet aligning to the soundboard.  
  
Beaks lowered, they begin to pluck the strings, one after another.  
  
There is a curl in his chest; then, a flutter. It is one of his father’s nocturnes; Draco just knows.  
  
“You can play?” He asks; the owls lift their heads. The eagle owl rolls its eyes.  
  
Once he picks up the guitar again, the owls spread their wings and rejoin their friends, who have settled once more on the rooftop. Hands back to where they belong, he begins to the play the piece both he and his audience know so well; night is fast descending, but Draco has no problems discerning the watching eyes, the twitches at the wing tips when his heart twists rather than flutters, when he suspects he has erred on something—a note perhaps, or a rhythm; the owls are a chorus, amplifying, echoing the whispers within him.  
  
Not only do the owls want him to play, they want him to perfect the language of his heart.  
  


~.~

  
Since then, the owls have taken residence in the tiny spaces beneath the ledges of Draco’s building. Every day at sunset, once Draco has put his cane aside and changed into a simple shirt and trousers, the owls make the short flight to the rooftop, where they listen to his music.  
  
Even after nightfall, a few of them can always be found perching outside his window, self-appointed supervisors to Draco’s night job. Their eyes move with the dance of the measuring tape, their wings curl with excitement when cuts are made in animal bones and the gemstones polished with mermen scales. Once the stringing begins, a conga line of talons marches to and fro along his windowsill.  
  
But the owls loathe it when Draco works on the enchanted instruments. On weekends, he delivers the finished products door-to-door and collects new orders in his violin shop on Diagon Alley, his guise a dark-haired Italian, modeled after a man Draco once spent a night with long ago.  
  
The rapping on the glass is hard and loud as Draco affixes a violin in its ornate packaging.  
  
“Pays the bills,” Draco puts up a half-hearted defence, the bite in his drawl long lost in the bag of owl treats he is feeding them.

 

 


	5. If That's All Right with You

The low clouds seem to ride on Harry’s back as he runs down the empty Diagon Alley. It is still early morning, the gray sky doing little to rouse a cold Sunday in mid-winter.  
  
Adelaide is flying ahead of him, her wing-beats measured and powerful despite her age. Her pride and loyalty has always reminded him of the namesake of his shop; that she has returned to Harry is no surprise. But where is she leading him?  
  
Sweat beads rolling down his temples, Harry tears his scarf away, no longer caring that his old T-shirt is showing under his cloak. The owl has given him no time to change, cuffing him on his face with her wings until he followed her into the street.  
  
“Where are we going?” He asks again; she once again ignores him.  
  
With a tilt of her wings, Adelaide glides around the corner. Knockturn Alley unwinds before him; it is ever more wakeful, its silent vigor granted an extension by the foul weather.  
  
Somewhere near the heart of the alley, where scents from the nearby candle shop blend into an indescribable smell in the air, the owl takes a sharp upward turn, flies along the sidewall of an old stone building and vanishes onto the rooftop. Losing sight of the owl, Harry Apparates after her.  
  
It takes no time for him to recognize his owl friends dozing off in nests beneath the narrow windowsills of the adjacent building; without their backdrop of trees, the birds look exposed and fragile. The rooftop offers an almost unobstructed view of the top floor studio flat that owns those windowsills, the narrow bed on one side with its black duvet and white sheets and the oversized workbench on the other. The home and workshop of a luthier, Harry can tell from the half-finished violins hovering in one corner. It appears unoccupied at the moment.  
  
From the assortment of owl treats sitting on the windowsill, the occupant has befriended the owls. A pang of jealousy strikes Harry in his chest.  
  
Flurries begin to fall.  
  
He looks at the other birds again in their new home; they look miserable already, cramped and shivering in the cold. The snow will only make it worse—owl feathers are poor repellents of water.  
  
Does the luthier know? Is it why his windows remain wide open on a winter day?  
  
“Remember to stay dry, all right? In case this storm gets really bad, my place is open...” Harry trails off. Their life is their choice, he knows; and if this is all right with them …  
  
Flying onto Harry’s shoulder, Adelaide nibbles his ear— _understood_ , he can almost hear her say.  
  
White wings spread again and Adelaide swoops towards Knockturn Alley. Harry follows her with Apparation, still befuddled by her urgency, still unsure where she will bring him next.  
  
But soon it is clear that he is retreading his path. The wind gathers strength as snowflakes whirl in a frenzy from the sky.  
  
Adelaide is taking him home.  
  


~.~

  
For once, Harry has caught up with the letters. They come from all over Britain, the smell of cheap ink carrying a whiff of hope, the crumpled parchment—likely saved from a rubbish bin somewhere—soiled with dirt and a dash of dream. It does not matter that sometimes, the handwriting is so messy that Harry cannot make out the content, or that the words are dissolved in a smudge of what have to be tears.  
  
They are voices drowned in the new world order; voices of children whose parents are serving terms for their roles during the Second War. They have no idea to whom they have written, of course. Harry owns a small flat outside Hogsmeade and the letters come and go from there; the weekly delivery of his correspondences is all he has ever asked from his owls.  
  
In the letters he is Jim, a retired Quidditch coach, loves animals and is an orphan from the First War—not too far from the truth.  
  
Just months after Voldemort’s defeat the Ministry organized visits to the kin of those who had been sacrificed in the war; Harry, then a novice Auror, attended them all and soon began to correspond with the children, even if his writing skills were abysmal at best.  
  
One day an excursion led him on a surprise trip to one of the Ministry-sponsored orphanages. Right behind the entrance, Harry found his letters displayed in a glass case. Mere weeks later, a delinquent arrested for theft made clear to Harry that the children of former Death Eaters and sympathizers of Voldemort were barred from these shelters.  
  
Harry quit his job that evening.  
  
Using a false name, he wrote to the underage wizard he had apprehended in the previous weeks; much to his surprise, he heard back, in a parchment filled with swear words.  
  
Harry answered; soon came another essay of vulgarities.  
  
They corresponded several times. Then one day, he received a letter from another child.  _My mate told me you’re all right_ , it said.  
  
Over the last few years, Harry’s list of quillpals has grown to dozens—a fact he is happy about, even with the mounting challenges of figuring out what to say, of creating on paper a life that is not his own. His current life, meanwhile, is hardly worth mentioning—it is simple, routine, a blur even in his own mind—an insignificant backdrop to the vivid sights and sounds of the war, of memories that he has no desire to revisit.  
  
With the owl shop closed for business, he can devote more time to each child; only now he has even fewer stories to share.  
  
The kettle whistles and hops on the stove. Harry throws his quill in the inkpot, runs to the kitchen and removes the kettle from the heat. It sighs with a giant puff of steam.  
  
At that moment, the doorbell sounds a crisp chime.  
  
Soon, he is squinting at the stranger in the doorway, his glasses clouding even more with the cold air crashing in.  
  
A strange expression seems to flash across the young man’s face; a narrowing of eyes, maybe, a purse of lips that looks out of place somehow. Harry’s vision must be playing tricks on him; the white, heavy veil of snow between him and the visitor is not helping either.  
  
Sharp cold raids his home through the open door. Harry shudders in his T-shirt and asks with a shout, “Can I help you with something?”  
  
The young man produces a package from his cloak and a slip of parchment, the latter of which he hands over to Harry; his dark fringe falls forward over his bowed head.  
  
It is the receipt for a violin. Harry frowns at the name of the addressee.  
  
He accepts the proffered package. Even the packaging is exquisite—a chest with silver clasps, every pastel shade clear in its pearly sheen. Harry takes another look at the storm outside; it is worsening, its full fury unleashed just beyond the confines of his home.  
  
“Why don’t you come in and have a cup of tea? It’s unsafe to travel even by magic in this weather.”  
  
The man shakes his head, his shivers nonetheless divulging his discomfort. Warming and water repellent charms have little benefit in a blizzard like this; his black cloak is peppered with snow.  
  
“It’s no trouble, really.” Harry raises his voice to battle the howling of the winds. “I’ve just heated some water for myself. Maybe—” he pats the box in his other hand “—you can show me what to do with this.”  
  
Below the thick eyebrows, clear blue eyes flicker towards the box and blink. The man looks too young to be a craftsman, but his heart must hold dear either the violin or its music. Maybe he cannot afford something so expensive; his clothes and his boots are quite plain.  
  
Harry pretends to fumble with the package, looking as clumsy as he can possibly manage. His little scheme works.  
  
“If that’s all right with you, Signore,” the young man whispers.  
  


~.~

  
His name is Domenico, he says in heavily accented English, Galleons jingling in the moneybag on his wrist. His ancestors have been makers of magical violins and cellos for centuries; he owls home the orders from London and delivers the finished goods his father sends him from Cremona. He is not much of a conversationalist, and from the shudder of the cup of hot cocoa between his hands, feels ill at ease with small talks.  
  
Meanwhile, Harry senses his own disquiet, which is mild but persistent. As much as he dreams of anonymity, Domenico’s absolute ignorance of Harry’s identity—and his failure to ask a single question related to it or the shop—is strange enough to garner attention.  
  
Still, making good on his promise, Harry lets his guest unwrap the violin, which is indistinguishable from a Muggle instrument save for the criss-crossed strings on the fret board. It is beautiful, its rosewood gleaming even in the dim light of the living room.  
  
Slender fingers turn the pegs and tailpiece adjustments before rubbing flitterbloom extract on the Veela and Chimaera hair bowstrings. With wild, black hair and a smallish frame, he looks rather like Harry himself; but those hands, so quick but gentle, can belong to no one but a musician. The same could be said of his eyes, sharp sans glasses and intent on nothing but the promise of music.  
  
The violin positioned under his chin, Domenico rests his fingers on the neck; the bow finds its place on the string and he draws—  
  
What comes next is the most terrifying screech Harry has ever heard in his life. It is a million times worse than the mermen song in the Golden Egg back during the Triwizard Tournament—louder and more piercing — and he hears within it all the anger and hatred in the world, as if Voldemort is back and is spitting venom onto his scar—  
  
A loud crack sounds. The violin lies shattered on the stone floor, and staring at the pieces and the broken bow is Domenico, his face pale as parchment, his head shaking as if in utter disbelief. His senses returning first, Harry calls Domenico’s name but the young man is too far gone in his trance to notice.  
  
Stumbling backwards, unspoken words still caught between his trembling lips, Domenico Apparates away with a  _pop_.  
  


~.~

  
The violin is beyond repair; the rosewood seems to inter itself into the floorboards at the instrument’s demise, leaving little but mounds of shavings on the floor; the bowstrings have managed to strangle their support and snap it into two.  
  
Harry sighs and Summons the wreckage into a drawer; he doesn’t have the heart to throw it away. It looks too broken to be abandoned, too weak to suffer another betrayal. He Levitates the opened chest with the addressee label and reads it again; odd as the enchanted violin and its deliverer are, everything on the label is beyond familiar—  
  
—which makes it the strangest of all. The address, the owl shop’s, is in Harry’s own handwriting; also penned by himself is the name Dudley Dursley. The two pieces of information were written on separate bits of parchment, pieced together by whoever had placed the order. He taps his wand to reveal any extra spells hidden within them. There are none.  
  
Who is mental enough to want to give his Muggle cousin an enchanted violin, of all things,? And why, of all people, send the violin to Harry, who hasn’t seen his cousin in years?  
  
A thought, a suspicion, seizes him. He rummages through his drawer for his old address book and flips it to section “D”.  
  
There is a hole in the page. Indeed, Dudley Dursley’s name was carefully torn out. Another hole on the  _Personal Information_  page where his own address used to be confirms his hypothesis.  
  
He looks out of the window of his shop. Grey clouds and flurries linger in the sky, weary from the recent storm. Even the sunset has done away with its usual splendor, opting instead for a subdued violet, less glorious but all the more restful.  
  
Grinning, Harry Summons his cloak from the hanger and places the address book in his jeans pocket. He wonders what his owl friends are up to—whether they have stayed dry, whether they are in the luthier’s flat discussing their little scheme and hanging out, perhaps, with Domenico.  
  
The young Italian must be someone they desperately want Harry to meet, someone important enough for them to violate his trust. Harry has never known a violinist or a violin maker before this morning, and yet he'd crossed paths with two of them in this single day.  
  
He concentrates his thoughts on the scents from the candle shop, its weather beaten sign hung on a rusted chain; Apparating directly to the rooftop may be a bad idea—in case someone is playing an enchanted violin again.  
  
But as the shadows of Knockturn creep into his eyes, Harry catches the most beautiful, most heartfelt music he has ever heard in his life.

 

 


	6. Convinced

Draco Malfoy has gone decidedly mental; he is talking to the owls.  
  
Worse, not only is he convinced that they understand his every word—as post owls often do—but that they are eager to find out what he has to say.  
  
“At least I got paid for it first.” He pats the moneybag on his lap. “Couldn’t have asked for the money afterwards, could I? Without those Galleons I’d be broke before the end of the month.” He exhales, ponders a moment over life’s ironies. “I suppose I can call them the Saviour’s donation for the Wizarding poor. About time, I’d say.”  
  
The owls have gathered around him, using the entire length of the window frame as their perch. He is at his usual place along the windowsill, hugging his knees with his arms as he stares at the purple skies. Who would have thought that the golden sun and grey storm clouds would look so … right together?  
  


~.~

  
The owls had accepted his invitation, taking refuge in his warmed flat through the snowstorm and definitely making themselves feel at home. Some are working diligently on the owl treats, others exploring the attic in which he stores his shrunken belongings from the manor.  
  
When Draco returns from Diagon Alley, they recognize him despite the remnants of his polyjuiced appearance; the older ones circle around him, the chicks land on his shoulder and peck his ear.  
  
Yet to recover completely from his shock, Draco manages a mere mumble, “Him, of all people?”  
  
It sparks an animated debate. The owls hoot at him and at one another, their eyes becoming rounder and bigger as they press their point; minutes later, a snowy owl and an eagle owl break into a fight—Draco has never seen owls slapping one another before—but as soon as he has separated them they fly off to cuddle on his bed, sharing a piece of owl treat between their beaks.  
  
Mental as these owls are, they force Draco’s mind away from the ill-fated visit, away enough for him to realize how little it will matter. The war has divided him and Potter into separate worlds; the chance of their lives crossing paths again is slim to none. So what if the heart-speak in Draco’s enchanted violin had refused to betray Potter? So what if this means Draco’s heart-speak must be one and the same with Potter’s? The Golden Boy will want to hear nothing of Draco anyway.  
  
And Draco is none too eager to share.  
  
This is when Draco decides to recount the afternoon incident to his new friends. He begins by retelling his history with Potter, whom he had not seen since the last day of the war. The sky brightens as he speaks, the burden of heavy snow lifting as his memories re-emerge—memories that, despite their darkness and pain have gained an unexpected silver lining.  
  
Childhood’s simplicity. Its innocence.  
  
Even some of his worst moments concerning Potter bring a smile to his face. What was he thinking, playing a Dementor? And the Fiendfyre …  
  
Draco Malfoy, Damsel in Distress. That tiara thing Potter had saved should have gone on Draco's head.  
  


~.~

  
“That’s my day’s adventure in every tiny, glorious detail.” Draco concludes, swinging his legs off the windowsill. “Our Hero probably won’t ask for an encore performance any time soon.” He fetches his guitar from the corner of his flat and mumbles an afterthought, “Who placed that order? I can’t even remember.”  
  
The wings behind him set off into a wild flutter. When he turns around, the owls have already landed in their usual place on the rooftop.  
  
Back at his performance spot, Draco strums his first chord and begins to play. A newfound freedom dances on his fingertips; he relishes it—there is no more searching, no more wondering to whom the heart that can understand his own belongs to or whether Draco’s music will be right for his ears when it opens his heart.  
  
His destiny is in no one’s hands but his own, as it has been for the last five years.  
  
The owls indulge him this evening, never stopping him with their twitches or disapproving hoots. At times, the melodies from his guitar seem to travel beyond his heart and whisper into his ears; he ridicules his overactive mind for imagining Potter hiding nearby, curled up into a ball under his Invisibility Cloak. Soon his thoughts and worries dissipate in the starless skies, allowing his hands and spirit to play songs dedicated to no one but the night.  
  


~.~

  
Harry Potter has a way of ruining every great moment in Draco Malfoy’s life.  
  
Such as, for example, showing up across from his flat with a deafening  _pop_  when Draco is still exhilarated from his best ever guitar practice.  
  
Such as staring at Draco with discerning eyes, as if no one but the Chosen One deserves any skills or talents, then asking, “that’s you playing?”  
  
Such as …  
  
“They’re my owls,” The Boy-Who-Crucios-Happiness explains, kneeling and patting every owl that has circled around him. His brilliant smile is an odd sight for Draco; the birds hooting lightly and kissing the gloved fingers is not.  
  
Draco returns to his flat and closes the window behind him. Neither Potter nor the owls notice.  
  


~.~

  
Harry Potter also has zero regard for privacy.  
  
For the past hour, as Draco strings the new lutes to be delivered that evening, Potter has been directing a piece of owl treat to knock on his window with his wand. He has questions concerning the owls, Draco assumes. Maybe he wants to take them back home? Hex Draco for owl-napping?  
  
Either way, Draco harbors no interest in Potter’s pending words. He spells his duvet to drape over the window.  
  
Potter spells it down. Draco Levitates it up again.  
  
Then, a  _pop_  and Potter is in the flat himself.  
  
Draco can only berate himself for leaving his wards down for the owls. He sets the lutes aside on the bench and spells a  _Protego_  on them.  
  
Better safe than sorry.  
  
“I didn’t invite you.”  
  
“I know. Listen, Malfoy... Draco.” The smile has faded, but Potter remains friendly enough. “I just want to ask. It’s you who visited this afternoon, am I right? And—” he glances at the half-finished violins in the corner of the room “—you made that violin too? I thought you work at Gringotts.”  
  
“It’s not Dark Magic.” Draco can feel heat rushing to his cheeks as an inexplicable edginess clouds his mind; the war has mellowed him, made him more observant and slower to act. But Potter … Potter is always above rules, isn’t he? “If you want me locked up for something, just say so. No point wasting time.”  
  
“No. The violin—” Potter rubs his scar for a moment. “We’re adults here. The war was so long ago.” Another look at Draco’s tiny flat and he blushes at his own insensivity. “I take that back,” he mumbles, takes a deep breath and starts over. “I should have explained myself better. I haven’t had anything to do with the Ministry for a while, so this isn’t an interrogation or anything. I just think our owl friends—”  
  
“The owls?” Draco cannot help but counter.  _OUR owl friends, did he say?_  
  
Potter nods. “They ordered—”  
  
“Luthiers don’t trade with animals.”  
  
“Dudley Dursley is my cousin; he’s a Muggle.” Potter produces an address book from his jeans pocket. “I’m his only connection to magic, which he probably prefers to live without.” He flips to a page with a hole in the middle. “Someone got his name from my address book and placed it on the order; my shop address too, you see.” He shows Draco another torn page. “Only the owls have access to the address book—”  
  
“This concerns me how?” Potter surely deserves another interruption; who gives him the right to talk to his former archrival like … a decent human being? “Some fan of yours wanted you to have a violin and vandalized your property. I can’t help you there. I collect the orders in my shop every weekend,” Draco nods at an envelope on the workbench, “work on them on weeknights and deliver them later. That’s all I do. Happy?”  
  
“I take it the envelope is always unsealed?”  
  
Even a troll can tell where Potter is getting at. “Yes.” Draco grits his teeth. “It’s possible some … thing stuffed an order inside and I’m unaware of it.”  
  
“Thank you.” Harry has the audacity to grin at him.  
  
Draco spent years surrounded by weathered sneers, murderous looks and fake tears—the childish display of triumph doesn’t rile Draco like it used to.  
  
Now,  _that_  is worrisome. “Can you go away now?”  
  
“Um, one more thing.” Potter swallows, a flicker in his eyes behind the spectacles; he is getting to the heart of the issue, whatever it is. Draco braces himself.  
  
“I know there are different sorts of magical instruments. What do yours do? The violin this morning sounded awful, but I was listening to your guitar just now—”  
  
“You were  _listening_?”  
  
“Yeah. I was down by the candle shop most of the time.” Potter’s eyes have lowered; his voice is falling steadily as well but remains defiant. “It’s not like you’d cast a Silencing Charm.”  
  
So his ears did catch the whispers from his guitar just now—Potter was nearby. Draco turns away and feigns tidying his workbench. “And?”  
  
“It’s really nice.” The response is almost a whisper. “I want to tell you because—well, because nobody else on the street seems to care. Music that good shouldn’t be ...”  
  
The pot of varnish slips from Draco’s grasp; he sets it aside and keeps his hands busy with a spool of guitar string instead. “People have better things to do.”  
  
“I reckon.” Draco’s picking the string, though feather light and soundless, is enough to distract Potter. Stepping closer to lean against the bench, he stares at Draco.  
  
Draco’s Occlumency may be the most impervious in Britain. He stares back.  
  
Harry blinks and adjusts his glasses. Then he says, “that’s not it.”  
  
“Whatever you wish to believe.” A thought has come to him; Draco picks up the lutes on the table and extinguishes the torch lights. “I need to deliver these. Come along if you want.” Glancing at the famous scar, he adds, “A Glamour may not be a bad idea; that scar attracts as much attention in Knockturn as anywhere else, but the reasons and consequences, I’m afraid, can be quite different.”  
  
If his evening goes as planned, he may convince Potter once and for all.  
  
He may convince Potter that his music is little more than an audible outpouring of emotions—skin deep as a sneer or a frown, shallow as a fleeting attraction or an insult honed by years of bickering—and the voice that recognizes their roots and calls upon them remains hidden in the very depth of one’s heart, to be barricaded forever by self-preservation, by pride that is impervious to light.  
  


~.~

  
The crowd in the public house is rowdy as usual, the scent of firewhisky and illegal potions pungent in the haze. Draco snakes through the tables to sit by the bar.  
  
“Are they here yet?” He asks the witch running the tap. Blythe is wearing her usual work attire—a tight-fitted robe tailored from sheer gauze like spider web, which does little to conceal her body.  
  
She shakes her head. Noting Potter’s presence, she takes a moment to scrutinize him from head to toe. “Another boy toy for you? You know, you’re stealing all the fresh meat from us ladies.”  
  
Draco laughs. “If you behave, I may invite you to join us tonight. My  _boy toy_  here is kinky as hell.” He gives Potter’s buttocks a smack.  
  
To his credit, Potter doesn’t flinch. He plays his part, even, shooting Draco a demure smile.  
  
Blythe nods towards the entrance. “With them coming in?” She crashes a tumbler against the counter, the liquor inside splashes before turning a sharp detour away from the rim. “I’d probably be here till morning to clean up the mess.”  
  
Pressing the proffered drink against his lips, Draco turns to look; as expected, his customers are here. “My condolences. At least I get to go to bed early.” He winks.  
  
The witch snatches back the drink to take a swig and wipes her mouth with a scarlet handkerchief; her lips are blood-red again when she looks up. “Playing arsenal again?”  
  
“Of course. Wouldn’t be wise to show up otherwise.”  
  
“Malfoy, you crazy piece of shit.”  
  
Draco smiles. “But you love me for it, don’t you?” It is true. Much to her dismay, Blythe has confessed to him and her patrons that her ears cannot pick up Draco’s music. “It’s good entertainment, even better for business. Who owns a full pub on a Monday night?”  
  
“Yeah, yeah.” She leans forward against the counter, her eyes a breath’s distance away from Draco’s. “Speaking of business, two witches saw the fight last week and want to pay you a visit. Should I send them to your flat?”  
  
This is a mutually beneficial arrangement. Draco’s instrument bring her business, the brawls they set off in the pub are free advertisement for him. He makes a gesture on his forearm.  
  
“No.” Her eyes flit towards Potter before she speaks again. “No … tattoos. Cheating husbands, I was told. They think a lute or two may be handy.” She straightens and chuckles out loud, her ample breasts shuddering; someone behind Draco whistles. “You’re a heartbreaker, Draco Malfoy. Promises one thing, delivers another.”  
  
Having finished the drink, Draco lifts the empty tumbler in a silent “cheers”. His customers are better off in the end; Draco has proven that much to her.  
  
He just needs his luck to last.  
  
Blythe sighs, her strong features softening for a second and for Draco alone. She holds his chin and presses her lips against his.  
  
The kiss is their weekly ritual; she initiates and he receives.  
  
“If your heart decides to learn a new language, let me know. I’ll give you private lessons on mine.” These words are repeated every week as well. She lets him go then, her gaze sharp as a hawk once she looks up. “Welcome to Acromantula. Your friend’s here.” She nods at Draco.  
  
The two wizards who entered the pub moments ago have approached them from behind, their sleeveless robes showing off tattoos along muscular arms. One of them squeezes Draco’s shoulder, the grasp closing just below his neck. “You got them?” he growls.  
  
Draco’s smirk—his customary response to the question—misses its cue when he finds himself with a lapful of Potter. Straddling his thighs, Potter’s arms have encircled his neck and shoved the wizard’s hands away like a possessive lover.  
  
They make a persuasive picture, Draco imagines, the space between his arms a snug fit for Potter’s smaller frame. No one in their right mind would shove away the most powerful wizard offering protection, so Draco returns the favour, wraps his arm around Potter’s waist and draws him towards himself.  
  
As soon as their chests touch Draco feels a jolt in his embrace. His own body shudders as well. Alarmed, Draco looks up and meets Blythe’s watchful eyes.  
  
He tears his body away from Potter’s, the small distance between them just enough for air to infiltrate and chase away the warmth. Reality returns to Draco with his well-practiced smirk; he Summons the pair of lutes from his pocket and sets them on the counter for his customers.  
  
The crowd in the pub cheers, and in well-practiced efficiency pushes the chairs and tables aside. Potter takes a glance at the lutes and returns to snuggling Draco, as if nothing about this is startling or unsettling to him.  
  
After all, this is someone who had the most bizarre share of life’s adventures, who walked to his death before the Dark Lord. He is not about to balk at two grotesque looking intruments or the violence soon to follow.  
  
_Good._  
  
“This better rip your heart out,” one of the wizards is glowering at his companion, pointing the neck of the lute at him.  
  
His eyes set upon the makeshift fighting ring at the center of the pub, willing the two wizards to make their way over. Draco interjects.  
  
“Worse comes to worse, we’ll have another round next week.”  
  


~.~

  
Draco has stayed for longer than usual, all for Harry’s benefit. The first blood has been shed, the first curse thrown, after the two wizards challenge one another with the music from the lutes—music mute to everyone else; each man takes their turn to play a short piece as the other tries to shield themselves with magic. Failing that, they throw hexes and spells at the lute player.  
  
“Hit him! Hit him! Hit him!” the crowd chants. Drinks are flowing from the bar, the snack baskets keep returning to the counter to be refilled. Blood has a way of boosting the appetite of Knockturn denizens. The patrons guffaw and bang the walls with their fists at the sight of two big wizards struggling with the delicate lutes. As the duel deteriorates intto a brawl, they are hollering and making bets on who will be the victor.  
  
“Let’s go.”  
  
Back on Knockturn Alley, Draco lets go of Potter’s wrist, anticipating judgment. He'll be thrown against the pavement and beaten up, perhaps, or bound by  _Incarcerous_  to be delivered to the Aurors.  
  
Instead, Potter frowns at the night air.  
  
“What are they hearing?” He asks the question Draco has hoped for.  
  
“Same thing you heard from Domenico’s violin, only worse.”  
  
“It turns them into monsters.”  
  
“Whatever they play comes from within. Music doesn’t lie,” Draco drawls. “You ask me what my merchandise does. It resonates, sounds off the voice in the player’s heart.” The statement is real, as is the pride with which he utters it. Yet it fails to clarify that the instruments only pick up the deepest emotions that the player may not be aware of, truths that words fall short of describing and which minds cannot understand or acknowledge.  
  
But those are details.  
  
“You may guess already, Potter, that love makes the lutes sing and hatred makes them screech.” The guess would be incorrect—once again, a detail. “The two wizards inside want to kill each other, if that is not obvious enough. The lutes only convert their spite into noises that drive each other insane; I’ve muted them to save our ears.”  
  
“Lutes … is that what they are in your catalog?” Potter speaks in a menacing alto. “Half Erumphent skull with what, a femur as the neck? The sound hole is the eye socket, I saw that.” Disdain laces his every word; still, Potter shows no sign of wanting to deliver justice with his own hands. “And what are those red stones decorating it? Frozen blood? I heard Dark Magic can—”  
  
“Rubies.”  
  
Cold light drizzles from the streetlamps. It exposes Draco to the darkness around them, the comfort zone he has left to the past; it exposes him to Potter’s scrutiny. Tilting his face into the night, Draco lets the rays shower upon him.  
  
Potter falls silent for a moment. “Sorry,” he says. “Shouldn’t have accused you like that.”  
  
A Malfoy is guilty of Dark Magic until proven innocent. Who hasn’t assumed that?  
  
“From what I see—” Potter continues, his tone softer and conversational “—this fight thing between the wizards has been going on for a while, and if it isn’t resolved tonight, they’ll be back. You’ll supply the instruments until one or the other gets seriously hurt or dies.”  
  
“Correct,” Draco answers with a smirk. He has a point to make, Draco reminds himself. He needs to make it clear that the only link between him and Potter is animosity.  
  
“Why, Malfoy?” Potter’s temper remains in check. “There’re a million ways to get rid of an enemy, probably more in this alley. The two wizards come to this place together, and their tattoos—”  
  
_He noticed._  Draco must brake this train of thought before it’s …  
  
“I saw the snake coiling between their wrists. The dragon wings on their arms flapped together. They… if I didn’t know any better, I’d say they’re a couple.”  
  
It’s too late.  
  
“Potter. The  _why_ s don’t concern me.” The spotlight above Draco is too much, after all—his eyes are hurting from its glow. “What I hope you’ll take away from this is simple. I wish I didn’t have to spell it out, but some people are just too dim-witted to get it—Domenico poured out his hatred before you this afternoon.” He retreats with the best Malfoy sneer on his lips. “That’s hardly surprising, is it?”  
  


~.~

  
Life’s irony manifests itself in the evenings of Spring.  
  
The scent of grass permeates the air, drifting from somewhere seemingly further than the setting sun itself. It smells like hope, rebirth and all those things the residents of Knockturn Alley have little time or reason to dream about.  
  
The strings of his guitar reverberate and the melody of his father’s nocturne flows into his ears. It’s intriguing, how every piece has become more intricate, more intimate overtime, even though Draco has yet to witness the sheet music making changes by itself.  
  
He glances upwards briefly at the shades of red and gold in the sky and the bespectacled git across from his flat listening, owls perched all over him like tiny sprouts budding from his silhouette.  
  
Potter has been here every evening since that day of the dreadful winter storm. The rooftop, he has insisted, is  _public airspace_ , where he’s free to hang out with his friends whenever he wishes.  
  
Draco is beginning to wonder how much Muggles charge for air.  
  
He hasn’t asked any more questions about Draco’s creations, arriving right before Draco’s practice and leaving soon after. In between times he is the ideal audience for every performer—quiet and attentive, yet relaxed enough to immerse himself in the joy and nuances of the music.  
  
If only he were anyone but …  _him_.  
  
Draco strums another chord. Would Lucius Malfoy have thought ill of his son for allowing Harry Potter to stay, for making use of Potter’s presence just so he can hear his father’s opuses?  
  
A soft breeze blows and a white dandelion drifts into sight. Its soft fur brushes against the back of Draco’s hand before taking off again.  
  
Flowers in Knockturn.  
  
Another miracle. Suppressing a smile that should not have blossomed, Draco returns his focus to the guitar.  
  
His father would have approved—Draco just has to convince himself that this is true some day.

 

 


	7. Time Well Spent

While Harry can attest to life’s transience, certain things in it he views as eternal—such as time, music and friendships.  
  
He was surprised, therefore, when one late Spring afternoon Draco informed him by owl that the evening practices would not resume until early winter and the owls might return to Harry’s shop without the music. The message concluded with a simple “D”.  
  
Struggling with his letter writing, Harry thought little of the message until hours later when the sun began its retreat below the horizon. It was time for the daily Apparation into Knockturn Alley that he'd been making for the past three months.  
  
He could still pay a visit to the owls.  
  
Also, he wanted to say thank you. The hours on the rooftop had been his most peaceful since the end of the war. With music, the most unlikely person had forged a haven in the most unlikely of all places—Draco Malfoy, on a filthy rooftop in Knockturn Alley.  
  
Just being there listening in the company of friends was time well spent.  
  
The shattered violin, the tavern wizards and their lutes remain haunting memories. But music, Harry has learned from flipping through the relevant section in Flourish and Blott’s, is resistant to Dark Magic; it retains purity among filth like a water droplet suspended in black grease.  
  
And Draco looks rather … pure when immersed in the nocturnes. Delicate too, as the instrument he plays like a guitar, sculpted from what Harry reckons to be jade with emerald clouds swirling on the white stone, pale yet lively as the face of the player. His hair and complexion, so fair that they seem to mock the light of the day and snub the tranquility of the night, are painted just the right shade by the fiery sky of the evening.  
  
If Harry lives for the sunsets, then Draco Malfoy lives  _in_  the sunsets.  
  


~.~

  
Spring in Knockturn Alley is a wonder of its own.  
  
This being the first warm day of the year, Harry decides to walk to Draco’s flat. In Diagon Alley the mild weather has brought forth a boost to businesses. The street is loud with incessant gossip, bargaining and coins being counted; it reeks of the cheap perfumes and love potions sold on carts.  
  
Meanwhile, in Knockturn Alley…  
  
Harry ventures a look from under his hood.  
  
Drifting white greets his eyes—like snow, but warm and lighter than even the late Autumn flurries. Dandelions are sweeping along the pavement. Round blossoms dispatch tiny parachutes as they fall, a valiant attempt to bring life into the alley.  
  
Old Wizarding families pass on this legend of dandelion snow—that a miracle will happen when a dandelion takes root in soil that nurtured the Tree of Knowledge, in soil soaked with the most ancient of enchantments, too powerful and precious for non-magical flora.  
  
Too Dark to modern day wizards.  
  
Once every few centuries, nature finds a way to restore its balance. Remnants of used ancient magic—from spells and charms cast in the past hundreds of years—accumulate to a storm that inundates the soil with promises of common life—seeds of plants that are worthless for potions, species so mundane that only Muggles would embrace them. The one flower that manages to live will thrive in the soil and rule surpreme over even the most magical of all herbs.  
  
Harry first heard of the legend from a quill pal of his, the orphaned child of a spy of Voldemort.  _People say we won’t see another dandelion storm because no one uses old magic any more,_  the letter wrote in a childish script.  _Does me finding a foster home count as a miracle?_  
  
Harry lied in his response. He answered no.  
  
As he stops and watches the storm, soft, erratic sounds steal their way into his ears. They are nothing like the beautiful tunes Harry has grown accustomed to, but not unbearable either. Instead it is as if an orchestra of novices has gathered in Knockturn Alley to play.  
  
Harry follows them, clutching the Invisibility Cloak in his pocket.  
  


~.~

  
The abandoned shack is on a side passageway, a narrow dirt path already paved white with flowers. The only window of the building is broken, the hole in the dirt-streaked glass inviting passer-bys to spy or eavesdrop.  
  
The space inside must be the remains of an abandoned potions den. Children—from toddlers to teenagers—are sitting on inverted cauldrons arranged in a circle, each playing and plucking the strings of an instrument in hand. A few have lutes, some have guitars or banjos. The instruments all look identical to their Muggle counterparts, but the wood is unvarnished and unadorned.  
  
There, kneeling before a girl, sizing and adjusting the position of her mandolin with his wand, is Draco Malfoy. In place of the casual shirt and slacks, he is dressed in an antique robe, immaculate but for the dust bunnies clinging to the embroidered hem. His long hair is slicked back and tied with a ribbon, a far cry from the loose strands flying in the evening breeze.  
  
Harry presses his back to the wall just in time, when a skinny boy runs into the passageway and hops before the broken window. Minutes later, he has joined the class, gingerly sitting on a pewter cauldron as an ukelele appears before him.  
  
Meanwhile, Draco’s patience is waning; he seizes the mandolin from the little girl, produces a lute from a hidden pocket and enlarges it to suit her size. It is only then, perhaps, that he notices the wide eyes blinking with trepidation. He says nothing but reaches out, combing her entangled, dirt-caked hair with his fingers until she smiles. A few adjustments to the lute later, Draco looks satisfied and moves on to the next child.  
  
Under the Invisibility Cloak, Harry is rooted to the ground, awestruck at the sight before him. Draco frowns often, his lips thinned to a vicious line when the fitting goes awry. The children are noticeably intimidated, sitting still and making little noise other than the off-key notes from their instruments, but they all stay and wait for their turn.  
  
It is a good half hour later when Draco stands with a sigh. The shack is almost dark, but rather than Spelling  _Lumos_  on the chandelier, he draws a square against the ceiling with his wand—  
  
—And the soft brilliance of the sunset showers the room, lighting the faces of the children along with their smiles. Returning a tight-lipped smile of his own, Draco Summons a wooden guitar and a half-rotten barrel to sit on.  
  
What follows is a music lesson that lasts until the moon has risen high in the sky. Teacher Draco is quiet and stoic, relying mostly on demonstrations to explain his lessons. Small hands cling to his as he positions them in place, as he clips their fingers between his own and they pluck a string together. The instruments, Harry reckons, are Muggle and magical hybrids—while they look, sound and play like the Muggles’ the children each learn to play their own even if they are taught only with a guitar. Harry wonders what they hear—they seem enthralled by the music, even if it is just simple chords mired with occasional screeches, the latter confirmed by Draco’s barely concealed cringes.  
  
Nonetheless, the grins of the children after the lesson are infectious; so are their playful skips back into the darkness, their steps light as the dandelion snow that continues to fall. Inside the shack, the teacher collects the instruments left behind on the inverted cauldrons, pondering and jotting down notes on a parchment as he shrinks them one by one. In the dull light from the hawthorne wand, clipped between the teeth on the silver serpent cane, it looks as if the ghost of Lucius Malfoy has returned to Knockturn Alley.  
  
Except Harry will never see Draco as a shadow of his father again.  
  


~.~

  
Harry remembers Draco’s evening schedule by heart: the luthier teaches children Wednesdays to Fridays every week, adults on Tuesdays, takes orders and delivers the strange looking instruments—like the lutes Harry saw in the past winter—for his Knockturn customers on Mondays. It is also obvious that Draco does not make bowed instruments for his neighbours; violins or cellos are reserved for the Diagon shop only, made of premium rosewood and never looking less than a masterpiece when finished.  
  
For an evening or two every week, Harry has visited Knockturn Alley with his Invisibility Cloak. As Draco fits his students’ instruments, each looking more sophisticated as days go by, Harry takes the time to visit the owls. After sunset, he is in narrow passageway where he makes himself comfortable on the ground still white with dandelion seeds. With fresh parchment and a Muggle pen laid down before him, Harry would begin to draft letters for his quillpals. Somehow, the simple tunes flowing from the shack carry with them stories he has never told, their every note adding the sketch of every scene and bringing to life details he has neglected to notice before.  
  
This evening would have been the same, if the owls had not decided to follow him and a moment ago, all landed on his cloak and hooted as loud as they could.  
  


~.~

  
Swearing never appeals to Harry, but his current predicament deserves a few choice dirty words, which he mumbles under his breath.  
  
The children react first to the hoots, their face bright with wonder when they see the flock of owls. Draco, struggling with a girl’s guitar, soon appears intrigued as well, no doubt noting the outline of air that the birds are using as a perch. Eyes narrowed, his hand is reaching for something—his wand, likely—when the frown on his face dissolves. Approaching the broken window, he asks with a sigh of both relief and exasperation, “Pot… Harry?”  
  
Ever so helpful, the owls flap their wings and do a dance. They might as well announce Harry’s presence with a  _Prophet_ ’s headline. The Invisibility Cloak is slipping under their feet, which claw and hop and pull the fabric beneath them.  
  
A deep breath later, Harry casts a weak Glamour on his scar and shakes off his cloak. What better use of Gryffindor courage than to own up to an embarrassing feat like this?  
  
Once he is exposed, however, the owls lose all interest in partying on him. Fascinated instead by the happenings in the shack, they invite themselves in through the broken window. Trailing at the end are Snowy and Eagle, their flight paths converging from Harry’s left and right shoulder.  
  
Just before they enter the classroom, they cuff their wings at one another.  
  
Ringleaders are trouble; true for owls, too. And these two—Harry glares at them—always have too much time in their claws… even after all their fighting and snogging.  
  


~.~

  
“You have too much time on your hands,” Draco quips as he stuffs a quill and a scroll into Harry’s grasp. “Might as well make yourself useful.”  
  
“Write this down,” he goes on, kneeling before the child with the guitar again. “Details are difficult to remember after class. Miss Andrews here may work better with a vihuela and baroque hybrid. Four courses, fluted ribs—six or seven, we’ll find out next week, try acromantular skeleton. Graphorn wing reinforcement, leave out the sapphire.”  
  
Harry scribbles down the information and peeks around—his owls are befriending the students, perched on their small, bony shoulders and nibbling their ears.  
  
The birds are cranking their charm up to full force, for whatever agenda they have concerning him and Draco.  
  
It is juvenile at best, but Harry can’t help but make a face at Snowy and Eagle.  _Don’t even think about it_.  
  
“Harry, focu—are you being a prat to the owls?”  
  
“I’m not. Git.” Harry’s rebuttal and stare at Draco are faster than efficient.  
  
The students, who have been stealing looks at the visitor, burst into giggles.  
  
Harry expects a reprimand delivered in drawls, or a kick on his arse to throw him out of the shack. But a sideward glimpse suggests that the teacher is too busy taking in the laughter around them, a faint blush like sunset painted on his pale cheeks.  
  


~.~

  
“I’m never good with children,” Draco offers as he shrinks the lute in his hands. He has not addressed Harry since the students departed, the owls following them to go on their nightly hunt. “I talk for five minutes and one of them will throw a crying fit.”  
  
“They like you all right,” says Harry, rolling up a finished scroll of notes.  
  
Draco has never asked him to stay, nor has Harry offered to remain as the teacher’s assistant—he just happens to be there.  
  
Helping seems convenient.  
  
“How long have you spied on me?” asks Draco as he unbinds a fresh roll of parchment. His voice remains soft, its biting tone having lost its edge since the pre-lesson giggles.  
  
Harry stacks the empty cauldrons and directs them to the corner of the shop. “Sorry.” He means it.  
  
“Don’t be,” drawls Draco, “it’s not as if you’re  _trying_ ”. His smirk dissolves into snickers.  
  
“You’re not cross?” As soon as he utters the words, Harry regrets them. They beg for the questions he so deserves—why he is there, why he seeks out the simple music, what attributes he finds in it other than … other than its association with Draco.  
  
So he blurts out the next thing that comes to mind. “The owls were having a field day—”  
  
Merlin. This is even worse. Harry should really, really shut up.  
  
Draco does him the favour of dropping the conversation, distracted by the lute in his hands, which he is marking with his quill where he intends to trim off some material. Silence hovers heavier than the dust in the air before Draco speaks again.  
  
“The music you hear outside …” he looks up at Harry, the grey in his eyes warmed by the reflection from the torchlight. They are soft, expectant. “Is it worth your time?”

 

 


	8. Right Place, Right Time

_Is it worth your time?_  
  
It’s a trick question—deceptive to whom, Draco cannot say.  
  
Out of politeness, anyone would respond with a  _yes_ , and being Potter, the accompanying explanation will be less than eloquent.  
  
And  _yes_  is what Draco desperately wants to hear, what Draco can regard as Potter’s appreciation of what he has heard outside the shack.  
  
And above all Draco can use the answer as proof of Potter’s vulnerability to the lies told in Draco’s heart-speak. For who would enjoy listening to an ensemble of novice players? Unless, of course, the instruments carry enchantments that disguise their sounds—infantile babblings yet to become heart-speak—as beautiful music. A charm that, just like the one in Domenico’s violin, would refuse to work on Potter’s heart that speaks the same language as its creator’s.  
  
Every countering evidence before it—from Potter’s ability to hear his guitar, to the shattering of the enchanted violin when its strings were drawn in Potter’s presence—Draco will consider as … unfortunate coincidences, jokes that the Fates have pulled on him whenever Potter is concerned.  
  
Music never lies, but the rule needs not apply to its audience.  
  
“It’s beginner’s stuff, I know.” Rubbing his scar again, Potter frowns lightly as he formulates an answer. “But I find the mistakes endearing. They’ll learn.” He shrugs and smiles at Draco. “We all need time to figure things out.”  
  
Just like that Potter evades the snare unscathed and drags Draco further into his own. Not only has Potter proven, once again, that his heart is immune to Draco’s deceit, he also shows without shame his appreciation for music so crude and flawed—  
  
“You all right?” Draco returns to his senses to the sight of Potter knelt before him, watching him with those impossibly bright eyes behind the spectacles.  
  
Tearing open the collar of his robes, Draco is about to make an excuse about the heat and humidity in the shack when Potter, curious at Draco’s guitar still resting by the barrel, rests a hand upon it.  
  
As his fingertips runs against the surface, the wooden appearance vanishes under their trail, exposing the jade hidden underneath.  
  
Like a child in his first trip to Honeydukes, Potter blinks in wonder at the breakdown of the Glamour. He turns his wrist and the cool green tracks swerve to form zigzags, which brings a grin to his face. Prat or not, he has retained an innocence untouched by the trials of his life. It is infuriating and …  
  
Charming, as it is in this instant.  
  
Still, Draco would have defended his guitar, if not for the sweet warmth enveloping his heart at Potter’s every touch. Like fine wine, it soothes and relaxes, loosening the knots inside him that are rife with tension, oiling the swivels that allow him to turn away from the pressuring burden that is always on the verge of crushing him.  
  
Then Potter plucks a string with his fingers.  
  


~.~

  
Draco reckons he has been interred in a forest. The fragrance of fresh wood fills his nose, winding and weaving among the rustling of leaves.  
  
Not a patch of sky can be seen, not a single ray of sunlight manages to filter through canopy above him. Still, the place is bright and pleasant, its soft light coming in from …  
  
Windows?  
  
Where he lies, Draco discovers, is a miniature heaven of fluffy cotton. Unburdened by the heavy floral patterns prevalent in the Manor, the plain, wheat-coloured bedding seems almost embarrassed to show off its quality, but the knit is so fine that not a single sound can be heard between his movements.  
  
It is during one of his twists and turns that Draco notices the numerous eyes watching him. One moment they are on the branches, the next moment, they are examining him head-to-toe from the footboard of his bed—his owl friends have all landed there. At Draco’s smile and outstretched arms, they hop onto the duvet and line up beside him, nibbling on his fingers and ears.  
  
But the wings are not flapping and not a hoot can be heard. The reason becomes clear when he frees himself from the affectionate greetings and sits up.  
  
On the floor of the other side of the room, Potter is fast asleep, sprawling flat on his stomach. His pillow is a stack of parchment, a corner of which is soaked black by spilled ink.  
  
It is a comforting sight, Draco admits. There is something about the way Potter merges with the backdrop—his ruffled hair and wrinkled T-shirt, his limbs stretched all over the places like tree branches, the mud stains that have crept from the floor onto his trainers. In this forest a hero is just another creature finding repose, another life sharing the fresh air that fills Draco’s lungs, revitalizing him like never before.  
  
He takes a moment to look around. The indoor woods is spacious but not imposing. All he hears are the sounds from the trees; there are no echoes of beasts growling, no shadows dark enough to hide enemies or even a lone unicorn killer. From the presence of the owls and Potter himself, this must be a part of Hedwig’s—a part Domenico would never have believed existed while sitting in the quaint living area.  
  
There is no bedside table, but a pair of slippers awaits beside the bed. Draco pushes his feet inside them, ready and eager to explore the place further.  
  


~.~

  
There must be a trigger in the slippers. Chaos ensues.  
  
The owls split into two groups; one of them blocks the doorway, the other lands on Potter’s head. They hoot a pleasant chorus only to lose their sweet disguise once Potter’s eyes open. Some of the birds proceed to nibble their friend all over his face, another yanks his glasses straight, others—  
  
_The owls are combing Potter’s hair with their talons._  
  
Draco is about to die with glee when Potter’s yelps of “Fine! I’m awake! Ow! Stop!” subside.  
  
Wiping his face dry, Potter notices Draco then, as Draco notices the wand sticking out from his jeans pocket.  
  
“I don’t use magic on them.” Blushing at the harassment he has just endured, Potter mumbles before stating the obvious. “You’re awake.” He glances at the owls stationed at the doorway, their wings spread to block access. “What are they up to? Trying to keep us prisoner?” He grins and shakes his head, gesturing them to come down with a downward point, The owls land on the floor and trot away, looking rather hurt.  
  
“Looks like you’ve got yourself a team of mothers.” Draco is still snickering.  
  
Potter glares at him though a grin lingers at the corner of his lips. “Guess who’s been a sleeping beauty and needs to be fed—” A blink from Draco and the teasing falls apart into a mumble. “It’s not what you think.” Potter is rubbing his scar again. “That’s from a Muggle fairy tale, sleeping beauty, um...”  
  
Draco has almost forgotten about having just woken up with details of the past hours unbeknownst to him.  
  
What has he done? How long has it been? What about his job? His business? His lessons?  
  
Meanwhile, Potter has gone down on his knees to tidy up his stationery. As spilled ink cascades back into its container in an arch, he clears his voice and speaks again. “I dropped by Gringotts, said I was interested in their investing programme and you’re helping me sort my finances. You’re on paid leave for a month.”  
  
“They believed you asked me of all people?” It’s a habit, perhaps, that compels Draco to cast a Scourgify on the parchment, clearing it of the ink stain.  
  
He is there after all. Helping seems … convenient.  
  
Potter looks up. “Probably not. Doesn’t matter though.” He shrugs lightly. “They didn’t bother to listen to me, really. They’d say yes even if I’d just stood there.”  
  
_Brag all you want_ , Draco is about to say.  
  
But Potter’s eyes have lowered and his chest gives a barely discernible heave. Maybe it is the dense rows of trees around them or the birds re-congregated in a flock. The Golden Wizard and Hero, loved and worshipped by all, looks so small. So alone.  
  
“You hungry?” Levitating the parchment and the inkpot, Potter is smiling again. As the stationery glides by him in the air, Draco catches a glimpse of the paper covered with writing. “You only drank pumpkin juice for the past week.”  
  
Has it been that long?  
  
Also, Potter’s question proves rhetorical—he is already heading down the stairs. Trailing him, Draco tries to wind back the clock in his mind.  
  
There was the shack, the children, Potter helping out, before a dream settled upon him…  
  
Was it a dream, really? Everything was white, like a cloud. He couldn’t feel, couldn’t smell. He may have eaten something—it was the pumpkin juice, perhaps—but it left behind no lingering tastes in his mouth.  
  
All that remained was music, nocturnes that came from not around but inside him. His voice could be heard as well; it was not singing, but flowing with the music all the same—a powerful outpour, but no vortices or hidden currents.  
  
_I’ve tried so hard_ , it said.  _I’m so tired._  
  
_I’m so tired of walking the line._  
  
The squeak as Potter draws a chair shreds the memory. An assortment of biscuits, tarts, milk, and juice flows towards the kitchen table.  
  
Draco should leave. He is an intruder in Potter’s shop, in Diagon Alley, in the world illuminated by the Light. This is at best a truce between him and Potter, an ephemeral peace existent only in this time, this place. What more can Draco want?  
  
He sits down.  
  
Grabbing two sets of silverware from the kitchen, Potter chuckles. “Still tired after sleeping for days straight? You know,” the plates clatter in his hands as Potter joins Draco at the table, “you said the same thing when you dozed off.”  
  
“I didn’t speak.”  
  
“When?” The question is as strange as the look on Potter’s face.  
  
“Just now,” replies Draco.  
  
“What about before? Did you say—” Potter is staring.  
  
“You mean, did I talk in my sleep?”  
  
Turning sideways, Potter’s chest gives another small heave, a gesture that Draco can only read as disappointment.  
  
Of course, given what has transpired, it is not difficult to guess what Potter has heard—a voice deep within Draco, rendering songs that Draco will likely never know or understand. But why the despair when Draco denies ownership of the voice?  
  
“Never mind.” Facing Draco again, Potter nods at the food. “Eat.”  
  
The Saviour is not about to poison him, Draco reckons. Famished, he chooses a piece of shortbread from the tray of biscuits. “You’re being hospitable—” he remarks and takes a bite, which Banishes all his suspicion. It tastes heavenly.  
  
“You’re here as Domenico before and I was nice,” Potter counters, looking pleased when Draco wolfs down the shortbread. He reaches for a treacle tart and nibbles on it for a moment.  
  
“I want to thank you for your music too,” he whispers. “I really, really like it.”  
  


~.~

  
The evening has transformed the rays streaming into the kitchen into molten gold, like the shade of syrup filling the treacle tarts, the biscuit crumbs sprinkled on the plates or the tea swirling in the cups. They blend into the hue of the old floorboards, the earth tone of Potter’s old T-shirt, the warmth radiating from Potter’s suntanned skin.  
  
There are no boundaries to be drawn, no divides to be made between the light and its shadows; no  _us_  or  _them_ , no saints or sinners.  
  
_I’m so tired of walking the line._  
  
No wonder this place feels so right for Draco, even if his paleness, his father’s robes—in stark Prussian blue with silver trimming—do not belong.  
  
Will never belong.  
  


~.~

  
The chime of the doorbell is gentle, but Potter’s jolt on his seat is not. Behind the spectacles, sharp green eyes blink and glance at Draco through the steam from their teacups.  
  
Footsteps have become audible from the storey below, feather-light patters soon replaced by laughter and instruments tuning to the right pitch.  
  
The Knockturn children are here, getting ready for lessons that Draco has no knowledge of. Potter’s sheepishness, in plain view with his incessant sideward glances and fidgeting, more than confirms Draco’s suspicion.  
  
The children now have a choice of him or Potter. Who can provide them with the best teacher, the best of … anyone, anything? Who will they choose?  
  
Further tea sipping is out of question—not when his lips have tightened to one impervious line. Draco sets down his teacup.  
  
Setting his down as well, Potter also casts off his hesitance and unease. He stands up and in one fluid motion, wraps Draco’s hand with his own.  
  
“Come on.” The handholding may be a habit, an accident or a ploy to thwart Draco from hexing him. In any case, it's effective; Draco finds himself losing all capacity of thought. “The kids miss you.”  
  
Potter may be guilty, but his grasp is firm and sure and safe.  
  
Draco closes his fingers around it.  
  


~.~

  
The children are in the living area behind the shop front, the sofa and coffee table moved away to make space. Only the desk remains in the corner, piled with parchments and letters. The owls are playing hosts, standing on the shoulders of their young guests and hooting, urging them to get started. Their effort is rewarded with pats and giggles.  
  
The students now have proper chairs to sit on. Each, too, has a small table and a dish of sweets. The air is cool and smells of tealeaves and wood.  
  
At the center of the room, a guitar sits on a high stool.  
  
“The owls have been your substitute,” Potter has stopped around the corner, keeping the two of them out of sight of the children. “They brought the kids here. We…they—” his words are muffled with shame “—just want the lessons to continue.”  
  
He lets go of Draco’s hand then, but not before giving it a squeeze—a squeeze that can neither be a habit nor an accident.  
  
“I’ll be out at the shop counter. Go on. The kids can’t wait to see you.” Retreating towards the shop front, Potter finally turns away from Draco when he says, “You can hex me all you want later.”  
  


~.~

  
The guitar looks the same as when Draco saw it the last time—wooden but with streaks of jade exposed; even the Glamour had trouble holding onto its deceit. Needless to say, the spell to create make-believe tunes stood no chance of surviving Potter’s touch. His students were unaware of the few silent chords he strummed before recasting the enchantment.  
  
The owls flap their wings and hop in what looks to be a celebration. Draco would love nothing more than to swat them like flies.  
  
The flurry of notes Draco has played had always sounded distinctive for his guitar; each was resonant but fleeting with its brief sustain. None of the other guitars he had heard, magical or Muggle, shared this paradoxical mix of depth and restlessness—like a candle burning by the window, soft and steady until an unexpected gust whisks its light away.  
  
It is gone, stolen by Potter’s touch. The notes, instead, run like ink in the rain—mundane and forgettable, their once striking beauty mired by the long sustain trailing each of them. The music drags and fades, its demise no more dramatic than the softening echoes of a chime, or a past drifting into memories.  
  
The fate of his father’s nocturnes will be one and the same, lost in the white noises of Knockturn Alley. It is Potter’s touch too, that sustains the Malfoy legacy, its magic—by keeping the family out of Azkaban, by knowing the heart-speak of its only heir. The punishment for their crimes is a lifetime of irrelevance, watching their surname wither into oblivion.  
  
Draco Malfoy is no Lucifer. He is no angel, no devil.  
  
He is just one of the millions meandering on Earth, crawling on like the soiled water above the clogged drains of Knockturn Alley—murky, unsure of its destination. The war smeared the line between his notion of good and evil, the aftermath wiped the remaining traces away.  
  
His world no longer requires him to make choices, for there are no more choices left to make.  
  
Music has remained Draco’s only source of clarity. Every sunset his guitar affirmed him with its striking, resonant and restless sounds. As luthiers or politicians, the Malfoy forefather were compelling as each guitar note, their influence on all who crossed their path—patrons or opponents—long felt after the brief encounters. Draco must be fated to leave his mark as well, only he would use music to engrave his name in history.  
  
The vibrating strings had also become lifelines under Draco’s fingertips. He had only known how to  _live_  in a world etched by lines—enemy lines that divided opposites, whether they were bloodlines, the rich and the poor, or the Light and the Dark.  
  
Now, even this clarity has been taken away from him.  
  
Beneath his trembling fingers, the guitar strings are tense and unyielding. If not for the children—  
  
One of them has come before him; Draco doesn’t know when. Neither does he know he has succumbed to a daze. She is tugging on his robes with one hand, hugging her lute and holding a dish of sweets in another.  
  
Draco looks up. His hands slip off the guitar, which falls onto his lap.  
  
“I heard you got sick. Feel better, Mr Draco” she says, offering the sweets in her small hand.

 

 


	9. In My Arms

Harry has never thought it possible, but Draco’s guitar sounds even more beautiful than it did before.  
  
There had existed a brutality under the soft, resonant notes, a hint of menace underlying the pieces dedicated for the night. Harry is no expert in music, but he can swear by Merlin’s name that Draco’s music is inimitable. Unique.  
  
He has no proof, as he told Hermione and Luna the other day. He only knows that the music he has heard on the rooftop and outside the shed … has reminded him of those nights in his sixth year, which he spent following Draco into the depths of the castle.  
  
It’s the paradox—the battle between the sense of foreboding and the draw of discovery, the hideous undercurrents of war sweeping into Hogwarts and the beautiful …  
  
_Beautiful?_  Hermione asked with a scowl.  _Beautiful_ , Luna echoed with a sigh.  
  
Harry couldn’t continue.  
  
Yes, there was beauty, for he could not help but notice the blond hair gleaming under the pale moon, the white marble arches reaching for the silver glow; all was pure, soft but breathtaking, like the music from the jade guitar years later.  
  
Contradictions. Draco has always been a ropewalker, treading the line between them. Time and time again, Harry finds himself watching right below. Years have passed, he has gone from hating the simple, lofty path that seemed to be a young pure-blood’s birthright, to finding out its dangers and wishing the ropewalker would fall, to wanting to save him because the fall was inevitable.  
  
Harry’s life, on the other hand, has been a series of choices that are mutually exclusive—right versus wrong, easy versus difficult. The war and its aftermath have defined him as the side of Light, despite his shortcomings, his sins and doubts.  
  
Paradoxes intrigue him; they remind him of sunsets, the sliver of time between light and darkness. The time when Draco’s music comes alive. When Draco comes alive.  
  
This evening, the guitar music drifting into his ears has mellowed, like the last remnants of the day retreating for the night. What it has lost in intensity, it has made up in depth, the lush overtones behind every note, the layers of emotions, of lost and sadness and trepidation and—  
  
The music has stopped. Harry had fallen into a trance, subdued by the voice inside him that must belong to the man he brought home. Ignoring his parchment flying everywhere, he jumps from his chair and runs to the temporary classroom.  
  


~.~

  
It’s Miss Andrews, if Harry remembers correctly, who has offered her dish of treats. The scene must have long overstayed its welcome. Shifting on her feet, the girl yanks and twists the hem of her polka dot robes. Her eyes flicker between her teacher and her classmates. Retreat is no longer an option, for Draco is clutching the dish and staring at the sweets.  
  
Harry walks up to them. “How’s the lesson coming along?”  
  
The girl has lost the nerve to speak. Harry wraps his arm around Draco’s shoulders and wiggles the dish away. “Do I get a sweet too?” he asks her at the same time.  
  
She nods. Harry smiles.  
  
A visible jolt runs through Draco. Still staring at the sweets, he manages to whisper, “I can’t choose. I … I just don’t know any more.”  
  
The drawl is there, as is a distant calm. A mosaic of subtle shades has painted itself on Draco’s face—reflections from the shiny sweet wrappers, the bright and pastel colours that are favorites of the little boys and girls and the subdued ones preferred by the teenagers.  
  
The clashing hues blend into perfect harmony on his pale cheeks—a harmony that is at odds with what is inside Harry. The sensation is indescribable; it brings no pain, but feels more like a non-existence—an impression of someone faraway, maybe—who is lost and confused, who is finding his way through a murky wilderness by gripping, holding onto whatever it can.  
  
_Trust your judgment. You’ve been hearing his voice—something deeper than his thoughts._  
  
Draco’s lips have thinned to a line. His shield is up—soon there will be a cruel, suspicious glint in his eyes or a remark armed with hurtful words. The girl steps back.  
  
_Trust your heart. You understand him more than you want to, longer than his music has played. The children are important to him. You’ve saved him before. Save this for him._  
  
_Catch him in your arms when he falls._  
  
Harry picks up two brown sweets, their hues identical to the barn owls on a beam, who are studying the scene as intently as the children beneath them.  
  
He takes Malfoy’s hand and places a sweet in it. “Take this,” he says.  
  
Draco looks up; his expression softens as Harry closes his palm in his own.  
  
“This one’s good, I promise.”

 

 


	10. Under Stars

The children are running around in the woods, playing catch with the owls. The lesson was over and their instruments have been stored in a cabinet. Draco has shrunk his own guitar to fit his pocket.  
  
“Thank you,” he says. “I should leave.”  
  
“Already?” Potter is leaning against the doorway of the owlery and glowing at the scene before him. “I held you captive and haven’t told you what happened. Don’t you want to know?”  
  
“What’s done cannot be undone.” Draco heads towards the stairs. “Thank you, again.” He sounds sincere, he hopes, and turns.  
  
“Wait.” Potter grabs him at the arm. “Your students—  
  
“This is a pastime for them; gives them something to do, something better than loitering in the Alley.” He nods at the owlery where a happy ending, fitting for the most saccharine fairy tale, is taking place. “Now they have friends, they have you. The owls are much better off here.” He thinks about the narrow ledges his avian friends have squeezed under through the winter. What were they thinking?  
  
“What about the instruments? You’ve tailored them for each child. I saw you.”  
  
“Same thing. They don’t need them anymore.”  
  
The hem of his robe sways as it would if the spring breeze outside has blown past him. Draco feels a lightness along his flanks.  
  
The next moment, Potter is holding a shrunk guitar and a hawthorne wand in his hand. He is rubbing his scar too, looking too innocent to be someone who just committed a robbery. “Merlin, you’re as stubborn as … I am, ” he grumbles. “Give me a minute to ask the owls to escort the kids home, then we’ll talk.” He pockets Draco’s possessions and offers with a smile, “I can make dinner for both of us.”  
  


~.~

  
Potter is addicted to treacle tarts. He is nibbling on his third one of the day. The windows of this building, Draco notices, have been charmed so they look out to much higher altitudes. Rather than facing the shop fronts in Diagon Alley, he can see the stars in the night sky. The lights of Knockturn Alley string together like a tiny silver snake below them.  
  
“I took you to the tavern first after I’d plucked your guitar, and the next instant you dozed off on my shoulder. I figured you didn’t want to go to St Mungo’s and maybe Blythe would know something about your guitar.”  
  
Draco, meanwhile, is getting addicted to the sweets that are stored in a big jar on the kitchen counter. He is folding the wrappers into paper cranes and sorting them by colour on the table.  
  
That way he can avoid eye contact with his host.  
  
“She began to tell me about the fighting wizards and their … relationship.” A pink tint creeps onto Potter’s cheeks. “In her words, they must have been one person in another world, at another time. They are practically  _inside_  each other’s heads,—”  
  
“Twins do that.”  
  
Potter ignores him. “—which are both batshit crazy. And they affirm their love by showing they know exactly how to drive the other up the wall.”  
  
Draco’s throat is dry. He grabs another sweet. “That’s nonsense.”  
  
“I told her the same thing,” Potter smiles. “And she asked me a strange question.” He leans back against his chair and takes a bite of his dessert. “She asked me, could that Potter kid have won the war if he didn’t have a bit of the Dark Lord inside him and the Dark Lord had a bit of him in return.” He glances at Draco and looks back to the ceiling again. “Took me a while to answer.”  
  
“You got the answer right, I hope.”  
  
“No way I’d know,” Potter’s chuckles, before straightening to lean forward, closing his distance with Draco. “Then she went on to say, only the worst enemy could be the perfect ally—he knows which curses will hit his counterpart the hardest. It’s then up to him whether to cast them or make sure nobody else can.”  
  
Draco closes his eyes for a moment.  _The language of the heart_ , his father’s script flows in his mind,  _sings the heavenliest of praises and spits the most venomous of poisons. It heals or destroys. There is no middle ground._. “How drunk was she?”  
  
“Dead sober. She told me, after that wizard couple had spent decades brawling, accusing each other of betrayals, you offered them a flawless solution. Other Knockturn folks also come to you, thinking the lutes are some powerful weapons. You give them instruments for free too, and lessons.”  
  
Only to those who didn’t hex Draco after learning that the lutes were just … lutes, who didn’t suspect Draco of withholding magic from their instrument.  
  
“People talk, of course. They wonder what’s in it for you. But no one’s been hurt. A few have found the one person who hears their music. The pair always becomes couples or best mates, even bickering partners.”  
  
Potter chews his lips. He has made the connection then, that the guitar will have a similiar effect on them.  
  
“The one caution they know of is the one you’ve told them, and they’ve kept it close to their hearts, which means—” Potter takes off and folds his glasses, placing them beside Draco’s paper cranes. Without the lens his gaze is warm as the candle light between them, “—that evening, I became the first to play, before its owner, the instrument that had singled me out.”  
  
_It means much more than that. I could have, should have stopped you, but…_  
  
The corner of Potter’s lips lifts for a smile. Did Draco’s heart betray something he doesn’t know?  
  
The joy seems unexpected for Potter as well; he swallows it, blinks and continues. “You’d be fine, Blythe said, you’d warned about it only because the commitment was serious and irreversible. I had no idea what it meant and took you back here, talked to Hermione and Luna the next day—that didn’t help much. Then I started hearing things—music—that had … moods, no, something deeper than that—behind them. I knew, I just knew that these feelings were not my own. I couldn’t sleep. I moved you to the owlery and asked the owls to watch you, put up wards and silencing charms around my bed, which turned out to be a complete waste of time. I was going crazy, before I realized I could write like a storm.”  
  
No wonder there is parchment everywhere in the shop.  
  
“I had quillpals, you see, kids I’d imagined to be rather like your students. All of a sudden I wanted nothing but to tell their stories for them. It’s … I can’t explain. That music wiped out the noises in my head. My head became clear and I could put together every detail they’d shared with me in the letters—how things looked, how they felt. I was sketching the scenes, line by line, when I put the words down.”  
  
“You see, I have my nefarious reasons for keeping you around. Like—” he looks into Draco eyes, searching for something “—remembering  _nefarious_  is a word I can use.”  
  
Finding himself in the depths of those green irises, Draco has lost the will to lie. What’s the point of pretense, their hearts … the way they are? “So, a stranger came in with her friend, more than a bit sedated and absolutely defenseless, and Blythe spilled the beans on everything.”  
  
“She recognized me. I Glamoured myself to look the same as that night I’d met her.”  
  
“You could be someone I’d just picked up from a whorehouse.”  
  
Potter gathers the paper cranes in his hands and blows at them. They take off, a dash of colours venturing into the starry night. “She called me Boy Toy Number One, because she said for all the talk you’d made about your boyfriends, no one had ever seen you with one, and definitely not … molesting one. So.” He stops, clears the plates with his wand and stands, still without his glasses.  
  
Draco keeps mum.  
  
“Beats Undesirable Number One, I suppose.” Potter’s voice is just audible above the clinks of the silverware. Draco’s eyes shoot up at these words.  
  
The smile on Potter’s face is almost shy.  
  


~.~

  
Draco is a guest at Potter’s for another two weeks, taking time to re-familiarize himself with his guitar as Potter writes beside him. The shop becomes his official classroom, and the children are free to visit whenever they want. Potter always has treats for them, small tricks to show and stories to tell—snapshots about the most mundane of things in life, like a trip to the Hogsmeade market, or a Muggle kite caught on his broomstick. For inspiration, the famous hermit has re-opened the shop to mingle with his neighbours.  
  
Potter has not sold any owls. One of the chicks gets along very well with a young witch. After a few days of observation, Potter sends them home together. Not a week passes before an old wizard comes in with two dying owls that he’d picked up near a port named Heathrow. Potter takes them in and nurses them back to health.  
  
Draco’s accounting job at Gringotts resumes with a substantial raise. It is also convenient for him to drop by Hedwig’s after work—for lessons, for dropping off treats for the owls, for visiting his guitar now resident in the shop. At night, he returns to his flat to work on the instruments for both Knockturn and Diagon Alley. The owls visit him every Saturday. On Sundays, he is likely in a faraway corner of the world, harvesting and buying raw material.  
  
Life has been generous to him.  
  
This evening looks splendid, as it does from the view of his flat. The night breeze is more than welcome as summer singes away the last days of spring. He shimmies off his sweat-soaked robes, picks up his guitar and takes a seat on the much more spacious windowsill of Hedwig’s, stretching his legs and taking in the scent of the marigolds in the flower boxes.  
  
He plays his songs for the sunset, savoring the beauty before him, the moments when the sun and the stars cross paths in the sky. The change in the sounds of his guitar matters little that night. He is too aware of the eyes watching him from behind, drinking in the view of his bare skin.  
  
His pounding heart sends the chords to a flutter—not edgy or restless, but lifted by pure exhilaration. Hope.  
  
Not that he’ll say anything; not that he has to.  
  
Potter knows.  
  


~.~

  
The owls are having a blast, stacking the last spools of strings on the shelf and lining up the jars of gemstones. Potter is studying the animal bones and the slabs of jade and marble he has helped move. Draco, meanwhile, is organizing the half finished instruments, still feeble or wet with varnish, along the other side of the room. At each tap of his wand, wooden racks sprout from the wall and resize to support the soundboxes Draco places on them.  
  
Earlier this morning, Hedwig’s Owl Emporium got a magical makeover. Potter enchanted additional space between the shop front and the living room to set up a luthier workshop. He seemed oblivious to the sheer magic he had infused in the spells, until the owls hoot for help under a blanket of wooden shaves.  
  
From this day on, Draco will work on the student’s instruments after class, saving him the task of taking them back and forth from his flat. Assorted blends of bones and gems have replaced the wood and arrange in intricate designs, the seams and joints healing from the hours and care Draco has poured into each of them. When the wounds heal, they’ll be able to communicate with their owner’s heart; they will devise its unique heart-speak and begin to resist the musical enchantments Draco has placed on them.  
  
When the last leaf falls in autumn, the children will have an instrument that listens to them and nobody else. They will know how to play it even if they cannot hear the music; they will find solace in its silence, in cold winter nights when even the stars seem unable to counter the darkness.  
  
As for himself …  
  
Under the same stars his guitar will fight off his loneliness, the undeniable ache that his own creations have deserted and forgotten him.  
  
“Hey,” Potter is calling. Draco turns around.  
  
“Don’t forget, the owls and I…” He trails off with a frown, the gaze behind his glasses turning soft and apologetic. “I can’t remember what I was going to say.”  
  
_It’s all right._  Draco shakes his head with smiles. He has become accustomed to Potter’s unfinished streams of thought, reflections of the undercurrents in his own heart.  
  
“And I was wondering,” says Potter, waving the manticore bone in his hand. “You mind making me something?” He starts another staring match with the skull. “It’d be nice to play … for someone.”

 

 


	11. All I Need

The article occupies such a small corner of  _The Prophet_  that Harry only notices it after spilling his cup of morning tea on the title:  _Merchant Arrested For Murder; Enchanted Violin Involved._  
  
He skims through the content, until he reads “the violin was bought from a little known shop on Diagon Alley. The owner, an Italian man, had promised it to be more effective than a Confundus Charm.”  
  


~.~

  
Harry leads Draco to the kitchen after the owls and the children have immersed themselves in fun and games. Draco still refits his students’ instruments before the lessons, but the process has been quick—the instruments are approaching their final form. An early start for the class leaves time for the children to roam around in the owlery afterwards.  
  
Without a hint of suspicion, Draco picks up the newspaper clipping. His expression freezes once he reads the title and remains the same—expressionless—as he scans the text.  
  
Meanwhile, Harry chokes on his breath. A cloud of smoke—equally dark, equally mystifying—is mushrooming in his chest.  
  
There is nothing he can do when Draco Apparates away with a  _pop_.  
  


~.~

  
Harry stomps and the sparse remains of dandelions flurry around his feet. He is too late. He should have Apparated here first instead of looking for the luthier shop in Diagon Alley.  
  
There is nobody in the flat, but Draco must have returned some time ago. Even from the rooftop Harry can see the chaos inside, the overturned worktable against burnt wood and charred walls. The air smells heavy—of ashes and dried flowers and guilt and despair. Draco cannot be far.  
  
He lies down and gazes at the stars, hoping their light can guide him, can bestow him with the clarity he needs. For once the night is too quiet, offers too few clues to the world around him when he can’t think, when his insides hurt with music—with Draco—so torn and heartbroken.  
  
The owls have formed a circle at the corner, hooting lightly in a discussion of sorts. Soon they take off in unison, Adelaide in the lead. Their silhouettes against the starlight fade away as briskly as they will reappear in a quarter-hour.  
  
No sooner than Harry notices their return, a guitar makes a landing on his stomach. Harry manages to sit up and catch its fall. The jade is cold after the flight and he circles his arms around it, warming it with his skin. His heart settles a little and faith releases some of the tethers from Harry’s mind, freeing it once again to thoughts and reason.  
  
Another jolt of pain shoots through his scalp. Before Harry reacts, the owls have flown back to view, the larger ones splitting a tuft of his black hair between their beaks. Meanwhile, having landed on the fretboard, the smaller owls begin twisting the tuning pins with their talons. Once the guitar strings are slack, the larger owls set off to braid Harry’s hair with them, tying immaculate knots to hold them in place at both ends.  
  
Harry can do little but to steady the guitar in his lap.  
  
Mere minutes later, the strings have been retightened, the owls have retreated and lined up on the roof’s edge—all except Adelaide, who is shoving the neck of the guitar back into Harry’s hand.  
  
“I don’t know what to do with this,” Harry says.  
  
She nudges his fingers into position with her beak.  
  
“What if Draco falls asleep again? We can’t take a chance on magic we don’t understand, Adelaide. He’s in a bad place right now.”  
  
The guitar gives a sway and Adelaide is gone. When she returns a minute later, the carcass of a rat is dangling from her beak. She stares at Harry with her large, round eyes.  
  
This is no time for charades. Harry rubs his scar and his temples. “'Playing with mouse?' 'Dead mouse guitar?' I’m sorry.” He gives his friend a pat. “I need to think—”  
  
Adelaide’s beak opens and the tail slips away before she re-catches it near the tip. The carcass swings like a pendulum between her and Harry, spoiling the air with its putrid smell. The implication is clear; one more of this maneuver and the filthy remains will land on Harry, and worse, on the guitar.  
  
The owls wouldn’t want that. They heard and understood the guitar and Draco’s music, led Harry to it by staying beside Draco’s flat through the winter.  
  
They have always known.  
  
“This … is it a threat?” Harry catches on. “Are you threatening me to play the guitar right now?”  
  
Adelaide nods and her wings give an affirmative flap. Even with the hurt inside him, Harry cannot help but chuckle.  
  
The birds will get a lecture—and a feast—after the ordeal.  
  
All right, then. He calls back the memory of Draco in the sunset—his lean frame bathed in gold on the windowsill, his face alive with music and passion—and positions the guitar in the best imitation of this image. He looks ridiculous, maybe, but somehow, the body of the guitar leans comfortably against him, the fretboard positions itself perfectly beneath his fingers.  
  
Magic. It has shocked him, put him in tight corners, but it has never failed him. The owls are there too; friendship is a special magic on its own.  
  
He will be all right. Draco will be all right. He smiles and takes a deep breath.  
  
“All I need to do now is play a gorgeous piece of music, right?”  
  
He sweeps his fingertips against the strings. A pitch-perfect sequence of notes leaps into the air, each striking as the twinkling stars, resonant as the depth of the night and fleeting as the winds that blow…  
  
It is the old sound of Draco’s guitar, before Potter changed it, mellowed it with his touch.  
  
His jaw must have dropped. Adelaide rolls her eyes, looking rather smug before she hops away and tosses the dead rat off the building. A loud swear can be heard right after.  
  
“Right,” Harry answers his own question.  
  
All he needs, as usual, are some truly clever friends.  
  


~.~

  
Not long before he received his Hogwarts letter, Harry’d had the horror of watching Dudley play air guitar. He wondered what was possessing Dudley when he crashed his knees on the floor all of a sudden, rocking the house to its foundation.  
  
It can’t possibly be like anything in Harry’s mind at the moment—or anyone—although this must be air guitar, wizard style.  
  
Each image is clear. A Slytherin school robe disappearing down a corridor, long before its shadow escapes the moonlight. The same robe, dark as murder, billows beside the Potion Master’s, pulling away from its pursuers amidst the glow of the flying curses. The chandelier at the manor casts a glow as well, behind the pale face that has just looked aside without giving Harry away. Its light is cold and eerie, unlike the scorching inferno that is Fiendfyre, its tongues of flame singing the strands of blond hair that have come loose. Tight, though, are the arms that wrap around Harry’s waist as he escapes the firestorm. Years later, a fire burns again, but it is gold and warm. The blond hair flows loose in the sunset in music that reaches out and holds on tight against Harry’s heartstrings.  
  
It is a history—a story of them and two extremes, but the transitions through the frames and time, in his mind and on his fingertips, are so smooth, so natural, that this must be how things are meant to be.  
  
And the music flows into the night, from Draco’s heart, from Harry’s thoughts. At some point, he must have keyed in a password. A faint light glimmers on the window of Draco’s flat and the wards are gone.  
  


~.~

  
Burnt rosewood litters the floor, as well as bows snapped into small fragments. A yellow envelope lies among their ruins, its content spilled around it in a pool of white. Each slip of parchment looks the same as the receipt Harry received from Domenico.  
  
He kneels down to take a look. They are orders for enchanted violins and cellos, each with a hefty price tag. Printed only on the envelope, the shop’s name is simply  _Amore_.  
  
Enchanted instruments are centuries old. Harry’s Auror training introduced him to them, if only as a side note—they are not considered dangerous, because their confounding effect lasts only as long as the music; the fact that they leave no trace is their only advantage. They are also too expensive for most wizards, who turn to cheaper means of seduction. Love potions, for example. Harry has surmised that Draco is using his luthier skills to make extra Galleons—money he doesn’t make in Knockturn. It’s not the most noble of professions, but …  
  
It is a far cry from serving a madman. It is also where Draco seems destined to be: neither in the light nor darkness, but on the grey line in between.  
  


~.~

  
Draco is sitting on the stone floor in the attic, his head buried on his raised knees and a journal in his hand. Around him is a jungle of shrunk furniture and chests that once belonged to the manor. Every piece is a snapshot of a ruined past. The clutter reminds Harry of the Room of Requirement.  
  
“You just have to know everything, don’t you?” Draco asks without looking up. “What is it about me that you haven’t dug up yet?” His words are still measured. Harry’s heart twists with the storm thrashing inside.  
  
“I don’t know how to play, if that’s what you’re talking about.” Harry sits down beside him and leans against the back of a cabinet. It shudders, and yellow dust rains upon him. He turns to take a look. The gold-plated impression on the wood is almost gone, unable to withstand the years of neglect and irrelevance.  
  
He gathers the dust in a pile and turns it into a small golden nugget.  
  
“The owls wove my hair to the guitar,” he says, placing the nugget between him and Draco. “The music just played its own when I …”  
  
Long, blond hair flowing between them, Draco peeks at Harry from above his arm.  
  
“When I thought of you.”  
  
Silence. The journal in Draco’s hand crumples further before Draco closes his eyes and speaks. “Your music is beautiful. It’s … it’s just what I need to hear.” The corners of his lips lift to a small smile. “Not bad for a beginner.”  
  
The storm inside Harry continues to rage, close and powerful, but its threat is gone somehow. There must be an alcove somewhere, a cave, perhaps, hidden under the rolling waves, and Harry—or is it Draco?—has found refuge inside. “I’d say thanks, but I can’t take the credit. The music can’t be mine.”  
  
Draco straightens, his arms remain wrapped around his knees. He turns towards the starry sky outside the window. “Do you want it to be?”  
  
“Yeah.” Harry doesn’t have to think on this one.  
  
“Then it’s yours.” Still looking away, Draco continues, his voice soft. “You don’t have to know how to play. I do. I’ve let you play it, let you … place a piece of yourself in it.” He pauses and takes a breath. “The guitar now belongs to both of us.”  
  
A night breeze blows into the attic. It squeezes through the narrow spaces between the shrunken furniture, its whistle usually reserved for the harshest of winter gales. A shower of gold plating falls again, this time in flakes. Gathering them once more, Harry only notices Draco’s gaze when a fresh gold nugget lines up with the old one.  
  
“Don’t bother,” Draco whispers, shaking his head. “I have no use for them.”  
  
True, maybe. But there is something in the gray eyes. A shimmer. Draco’s breath is warm and the breeze has only brought them closer together. Their shoulders have touched, then their arms—with a faded Dark Mark on Draco’s—and their hands, Harry's bearing a scar that reads  _I must not tell lies_.  
  
“I wish I recognized what I was playing just now,” Harry says. “At least it’s something you like.”  
  
Slender fingers are brushing against his own. Draco is staring at the bare, rotten beams up high—there are no branches, no leaves, no owls. They maintain silence for a while, before another breeze carries with it a whisper light as itself. “I think I recognize your music. Would a reminder help?”  
  
Harry nods, then remembers Draco cannot see him—  
  
The journal falls on the floor; its pages fan open like the tail of a peacock. Draco’s eyes are looking into Harry’s own, his palms cupping Harry’s face.  
  
“This,” Draco says. “This is your reminder.” He takes a breath and presses his mouth against Harry’s. The kiss is light but firm, nothing like the heavy jumps of Harry’s heart, pounding in a way that Harry doesn’t know if it stems from himself or from Draco, whether its strength comes from Draco’s body flush against his own or because Draco’s music is playing to his own heartbeat.  
  
Not that it matters any more.  
  
The lips clashing against his are soft, the warmth between their colliding breaths gentle. Their music cannot be anything but this—a concerto of war and reconciliation, a symphony of hatred and … love.

 

 


	12. One of These Days

With Draco in his arms, Harry is flipping through Lucius Malfoy’s journal. The irony of the scene seems lost on him.  
  
“I might have omitted my father’s role in this,” Draco says, studying the pair of golden nuggets in his hands.  
  
Potter takes a downward glance down at him. “You mean taking care of an ickle Draco?” He grins. “I think I got that.”  
  
“No. He taught me everything that made me a Malfoy luthier—” Draco straightens. Cool air raids the space between them, and he shivers. “—and I exploited the knowledge for extra Galleons. My enchantments confounded, but they also hypnotized the heart with heart-speak. Rather harmless, I thought, and now, someone’s dead.” He closes his eyes. Even the sight of the broken furniture, with its faded splendor, is too much for him. “It’s the only legacy from my father and I blemished it.”  
  
Harry pulls Draco back into his arms.  
  
“The one thing from him untouched by death or Dark Magic,” Draco continues. “The only thing that the Malfoys—that I—can still be proud of.”  
  
He heaves a sigh, which Harry banishes with a kiss.  
  
“The violin was out of your hands. The murder—it was sad, but the bloke brought it on himself. He made the witch leave her family for him just so that he would get her company’s contract.”  
  
“Of course I’m not to blame,” Draco gives a faint smile, “A Malfoy’s never to blame.”  
  
His cheek brings a chuckle to his ears. “Your dad’s legacy is still good,” Harry says. “Take this from me.” He lifts Draco’s chin so they are face to face with one another. “Seriously.”  
  
Draco rolls his eyes.  
  
“You know I would’ve been the last person to say this five years ago.” Harry voice is soft, his gaze steady on Draco. “You have convinced me. The children, the folks in Knockturn are lucky to have you. You’ve done more than I have, when I’ve been in a better position to do something.” The two nuggets sprout wings in Draco’s hand. “You’ve beaten me fair and square on this one.”  
  
Draco releases the Snitches that are soon lost between old furniture. “`One of these days,’ I’d thought since I’d started this project,” Draco flips through the journal again, taking comfort in the emerald ink still brilliant in the script. “`people will regard our family as they did centuries ago. We’re musicians—romantics who hear the heart in everyone, who finds everyone worthy of companionship …’”  
  
_And love._  This, Draco realizes, is the closest to a confession from a Malfoy—a revelation of dreams, of what he lacks and yearns to own. He forges on, “`And we are good men—” he searches Harry’s face; there is no disbelief, no ridicule, “—with a heart of gold.’”  
  
Harry holds on to him tighter. “I’ve thought loads of times when I listen to you play,” taking Draco’s hand, he whispers a spell and the silver trim on Draco’s sleeve morphs to gold, “‘one of the these days, I’ll tell Malfoy that sunsets look good on him’. Gold suits you.”  
  
His smile at Draco is bright and warm. Harry Potter’s weapon is more than love; there is also faith, the trust he is willing to place on a heart as volatile, as fleeting as a Malfoy’s.  
  
“Bloody Gryffindor.”  
  
Harry laughs and leans forward to kiss him.

 

 


	13. Let's Take It Back

_Jacob,_  
  
_I hope this letter reaches you with little trouble, knowing you must be all over Ireland degnoming the summer gardens. My friend told me it’s easier to make the gnomes dizzy by spinning them counterclockwise (clockwise in Australia). Is he pulling my leg? He’s been my best mate for so long and he looked bloody serious at the time. Then another friend said he had tried feeding the gnomes with firewhisky with dismal results because 1) the peacocks in his garden drank it all and drunk peacocks were more LOUD than dizzy and 2) his father locked him in a warded study for a week afterwards. By the way, he’s been scheming to redo the experiment._  
  
_Enough about the gnomes and my mates who are, at the moment, bonding over them (don’t ask). I’m writing you because I’d like to invite you to visit and stay in my place for a while—as long as you like, really—with other children just like you. London’s been getting dandelion snow and I remember how much you’ve wanted to see it. Even better, the seeds have decided to settle down. There is an alleyway, not far from where I live, that is covered with the flowers._  
  
_And we seem to have taken the miracle back to our place. A while back, a pet owl of ours snipped off a dandelion and brought it home. Now it’s using our whole house as its trellis. Music makes it grow, we reckon._  
  
_Ah. About the we and the music. A friend’s been sharing my place and he’s a music teacher. He’s also good at making the instruments (and wasted peacocks, but I never told you that). His sense of humour can be a bit strange sometimes, but you’ll get along with him. He probably knows a lot of the things you told me that I hadn’t heard about._  
  
_I must keep this short because it’s quite a list of you I want to go through this evening. Let me know if you’d like to join us, and I’ll pick you up at the hostel. If Mr Thompson gives you a hard time for taking leave, send me an owl. Believe me, there is a VERY persuasive side to my personality._  
  
_Now stop snickering._  
  
_Your friend,_  
_Jim._  
  
_PS. Stuart is invited too. What kind of cricket treats does he like?_

 

 


	14. I'll Be There

Hedwig’s has become an owl shop, an orphanage, a music school and a garden—if taken in consideration the dandelions blooming everywhere. It is always filled with laughter and hoots, even a few cricket chirps—except in the late afternoons, when lessons are in progress. That is the time for music to sing and flowers to grow, for Draco to throw glances at his assistant, who watches him play the guitar, his face flush from the warmth of the setting sun and the heartfelt messages under the music.  
  
It is at once the busiest place and the most peaceful place in Diagon Alley.  
  
Draco’s expanded workshop now occupies its own floor, with rooms dedicated for storage of the raw materials and works-in-progress. Harry has helped him close the Diagon shop, claiming he doesn’t share Draco’s  _Amore_  well. Draco now devotes his spare time to making the Malfoy instruments, even for those who live beyond Knockturn Alley.  
  
The first recipients are Harry’s former quill pals who have all decided to stay. Like Jacob, they are orphans who have worked as child laborers in exchange for food and shelter. While “Jim”’s actual identity has shocked them, so has his honesty—Harry answers every question they have, at whatever time they ask—and his devotion to their welfare. Their doubts are also eased by the presence of the Knockturn children and Draco, who has earned their trust by unearthing some of his keepsakes from the shrunk Manor cabinets—playthings they remember nagging their parents to buy, picture books filled their old bedtime stories.  
  
Still, Draco hasn’t expected them to want music lessons. The owls are good company, after all, and Harry and Draco are already teaching them Quidditch.  
  
But everyone has signed up. Consequently, Draco not only has to teach an extra class, he will also have to do a week of grocery shopping for two adults, nine teenagers, twenty children, thirty owls … and a cricket.  
  
He’ll never place another bet again.  
  
Blessed as it is, Draco’s new life has been hectic—so hectic that he has yet to deliver his promise for Harry. He nudges the forepillar, which he attached to the frame the night before. It is sturdy. The harp is ready to be strung.  
  
Spools of dragon heartstrings are waiting on the bench. Draco has spent a fortnight extracting the fibers and spinning them into yarn, which is kept supple by the owls playing tug of war with them. Needless to say, Snowy and Eagle are the team leaders.  
  
Only one component is missing. With a wave of his wand, the black silk ribbon on Draco’s ponytail unravels. He has retired his father’s antique wardrobe, even though he still holds his accountant job—he refuses to live off Harry’s inheritance and Hedwig’s non-existent business plan. The silver cane has also been stowed away, its serpent design too frightening for young children.  
  
Charlotte, a small barn owl, flies in, lands on the open journal on the desk and sticks out her talon. Draco retrieves the message.

> _Success! Ron + me (with Stuart) + Burrow gnome in owlery. Listen for chirps. Bring Ogden’s. Harry’s out shopping. Jacob._

  
“I’ll be there,” Draco says. The owl refuses to leave, opting to inspect the workshop. It bends down and pecks at the journal.  
  
“I thought you and your friends read and memorized it front to back.” He picks up an owl treat from the jar and feeds it to Charlotte. “Should never have let you into my flat during the blizzard,” he drawls.  
  
Charlotte hops off the page, looking rather sheepish. Draco pets her.  _Silly bird. I’m joking_.  
  
Checking his father’s instructions for the last time, Draco retrieves his wand. A spell later, he can feel the autumn breeze caressing the skin on his neck.  
  
Draco collects the fallen tresses and combs them until the blond shines with a smooth sheen, until his mind has bid another farewell to his parents. The hair soon lies in a stone basin, its luster fading in the hot Chimaera oil. When only a dull brown remains, each strand will be strong enough to bind with the dragon heartstrings. Harry’s instrument will have a piece of Draco in it from the start.  
  
It will be a long night. Draco has never worked on a harp before—how can a heart so open, so candid need so many strings to speak?  
  
Harry’s reasoning is simple:  _because it’s talking to you._  
  
Draco just hopes when he picks its first note, Harry won’t play Sleeping Beauty and wake up a week later. What will Draco hear then? If the harp’s construction were any guide ….  
  
His fingers brushes the frame that is made of plain maple—without any bones or gems, not even the exotic woods that made the enchanted violins or the brass and steel that bear the load in Muggle harps. The magic of Harry’s instrument lies in the maple’s ability—and willingness—to play the part of every material, whether for strength, beauty or timbre.  
  
The only constant about Harry is how constants never seem to apply to him.  
  
Charlotte gives an impatient hoot, a reminder for Draco to join his conspirators. Jacob has probably lost his cricket in the owlery’s meadow again. Closing his father’s journal, Draco bookmarks the page with a single dandelion—the one Snowy picked for him and Harry the day he moved to Hedwig’s. The flowers have been blooming behind the shack, and if the residents nearby are to be believed, they have been spreading life all over Knockturn Alley.  
  
It is all unexpected. A miracle.  _Their_  miracle. Harry’s heart will have a place for him, and his, for Harry. They’ll always be there for—and with—one another.

 

 


	15. Epilogue: We Belong

They are kneeling on their bed, their naked bodies pressed together, below a ceiling overgrown with dandelions. Arms wrapped around his waist, Draco is kissing down along Harry’s nape, his hard length nudging Harry from behind. Harry takes Draco’s hand and places it on his own arousal as he twists his body to give Draco a kiss. Draco thrusts his hips and moans against Harry’s mouth.  
  
The birds give a loud hoot in the owlery. Another party has begun, Harry reckons. They have been having one every night since Harry and Draco became an item.  
  
“Silencing charm?” Draco asks between kisses. He has flipped Harry on his back and is nibbling on Harry’s earshell.  
  
Every movement between them has an urgency that has never been there before. They have done their share of frotting, blowjobs and handjobs in the living room, the kitchen, even on the shop counter; with the bottle of firewhisky they’ve shared and their first successful trip to the bedroom, Harry is anticipating tonight to be the night—  
  
“Ngh.” His speech reduced to nonsense, Harry arches his back as Draco peppers kisses down his torso, nipping and pushing off the golden flowers that have fallen upon him. Draco’s hands are travelling the opposite direction on his inner thighs, their fingers reaching the crease and brushing—  
  
The owls hoot again.  
  
“I think—” Draco stops, panting, and crawls up the bed, his face leveled with Harry’s once more. His lips are swollen; pink blotches paint his pale skin, which shimmers with its sheen of sweat in the soft candle light. “We need to take care of our friends first. Killing curse or poison. Your pick.”  
  
“They’re like that.” Harry pulls Draco’s head down for a kiss, just wanting the lovemaking to resume. The petals strewn everywhere mark the stretches on Draco’s body Harry  _needs_  to touch. Right now.  
  
Without a warning, Draco presses his body downward and rubs his hard length against Harry’s. Taken by surprise, Harry gasps and his legs spread.  
  
Another hoot.  
  
Draco turns and frowns at the doorway. “They’ve got to be watching us.”  
  
His sensitivity to the owls is understandable. After all, they used to live outside the wards of his flat. True, their avian friends have been rowdier these weeks, but their moods, like humans’, have their ups and downs. Harry is not about to deny them some fun, not after what they have done for him, not when he and Draco … are having fun themselves.  
  
This home belongs to all of them.  
  
“They can’t be,” Harry answers, reaching for a glass pot hovering above one of the candles. His hand is not quite there when a thought comes to him. “Wait.”  
  
“Please. Don’t tell me—” With what can only be described as a pout, Draco flops off Harry to lie on his back, showcasing his erection but still close enough to nestle his face against the crook of Harry’s neck.  
  
The oil may be warm and their bodies both eager and ready, but…  
  
“The wall here becomes transparent if the owls peck on a sequence of tree branches. They can look into here.”  
  
Draco quirks an eyebrow.  
  
“The chicks feel safer when there’s a storm at night.” Harry dabs his greasy finger, the one he just used to test the oil temperature, on the tip of Draco’s pointy nose. “There never was a problem—I didn’t have visitors.”  
  
Realizing what he has just given away, Harry blushes, his reward a series of kisses along his jawline.  
  
“Can we see them from here?” Draco mutters at the hollow above his collarbone. “Let’s see what they’re up to.”  
  
An intermission is unavoidable. Harry gives an exasperated sigh, Accios his wand and casts the charm. The wall becomes transparent on their side but remains solid from the point of view of the owlery. He turns Draco sideways with himself so their bodies are spooning against one another, his arms circling Draco’s chest from behind.  
  
“It’s a meeting, I reckon.” Harry explains, wanting to it fast. “They form a circle when they’re voting. They raise a wing to vote. Look.” He nods as the owls do what he just described.  
  
At the same moment, Draco bursts into laughter, throwing his head backwards and hitting Harry squarely on the jaw. “Harry. Look. At. Eagle. And. Snowy. At. The. Centre.” He is snorting, almost.  
  
Harry Summons his glasses from the bedside table and puts them on.  
  
_Oh dear_.  
  
“Er, well,” Harry mumbles, “that would be Snowy buggering Eagle.”  
  
“No,” Draco is wiping off tears, coiled up with his arms pressed against his stomach. “It’s the other way—” He says, gasping for air.  
  
What? “Snowy is the snowy owl—”  
  
“That’s stating the obvious.” Draco retorts, before his eyes narrow for another look. “Oh.” “They’ve switched positions. Huh. Efficient.” He feigns a frown.  
  
“Told you.”  
  
Draco tilts his head backward and grins at Harry. Harry nods at the transparent wall, signaling him to look.  
  
The owls are voting again. Only a few wings are raised this time.  
  
Draco catches it just in time before the owls break up their meeting and line up in front of the wall, each having a small pile of owl treats of their own. Adelaide is not among them and the chicks are missing as well. Harry finds them in the far corner of the owlery, the older owl spreading her wings before the young ones. She looks rather cross, her bright, round eyes are shooting daggers in the wall’s direction.  
  
Not that the other owls care. Snowy and Eagle have given up their debauchery, although they are still pressing feather-to-feather against each another. They share a piece of owl treat and their eyes are also trained on the wall.  
  
Harry and Draco stare. The owls’ antics are replaying in Harry’s head, and no doubt in Draco’s as well: Snowy buggers Eagle. Vote. Eagle buggers Snowy. Vote. Watch Harry and Draco frolick in bed. Munch on snacks.  
  
Giving his feathers an impatient shake, Eagle tilts his head, shoves the owl treat into Snowy’s mouth and hops to the wall. He taps it with the tip of his wing, then takes off and does an elaborate flight sequence on the tree branches. He returns to his place and watches the wall again.  
  
The owl has just reactivated the Window Charm; they must wonder why Harry and Draco are not moving.  
  
Flopping onto his back, Harry tilts his face sideways to stare at Draco.  
  
Draco stares back and speaks his mind first. “Pervs.”  
  
In a rather belated attempt at modesty, Harry cocoons himself with the cotton sheets and nods.  
  
“You look like a dead Pharaoh.” Draco tries to pulls the sheet over Harry’s head, snickers and glances at the protrusion between Harry’s thighs. “A dead, horny Pharaoh.”  
  
Harry glares at him.  
  
Draco bursts out laughing. “Still, I’d say the our friends have exquisite taste.”  
  
“I can’t reverse the Window Charm without going into the owlery.” Harry props himself up on his elbows and shuts Draco up with a kiss. “And I think we’ll need all the privacy tonight.” He raises his wand, ready to fire spells around the room.  
  
Draco catches his wrist, his own wand zipping into his grasp. “Agreed. Let me do this. How dare they, wanting a free show.” With a slew of luthier charms, dandelions rain from the ceiling and their stems braid together to form floral strings; soon, the bed and the hovering candles are all hidden under a canopy of flowers.  
  
“And the owls have spoken. Eagle would never let Snowy top.” He knocks Harry onto his back and rolls above him, then grabs the pot of oil still warming on a candle. With a wave of his wand, the dandelion curtain draws itself close.  
  
From the owlery comes a collective hoot of protest.  
  
  
  
_~Fin_

 


End file.
